


Rubicon

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Celibacy, Friends to Lovers, Introversion, M/M, Sherlock's Wrong, Virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-26 23:31:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2670455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I consider this very definitely an AU. Most of my stuff could be shoved into some twisted version of canon compliance. Indeed, most of my stuff plays with various different ways you could color in the vast gaps in canon to create different pictures. This one, though, to me seems at the very least, unlikely. The bottom line is I consider the odds of Mycroft being a virgin OR celibate comparatively slim. Even accepting that Sherlock is wrong about many things, the two brothers seem to be in unhappy conflict over the fact that Mycroft is not a virgin or celibate, but actively gay, and Sherlock at least appears to have started the show celibate. </p><p>That said, some of the discussion of shyness, introversion, and hypersensitivity left me wondering about building an AU in which Mycroft knew his orientation, and was comfortable with it--but too shy, reserved, and hyperreactive to have done anything about it barring some preliminary activities that upset him.</p><p>So this is a late-life Mycroft is a virgin story set in an adventure. It is proving too big, so I may need to work it out over the week. I expect maybe three total posts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Wednesday, August 4, 2012, Olympic Park, London

Things started to go wrong well before Lestrade and Mycroft got caught up in the crowds leaving the Olympics. Holmes didn’t like field work in the first place, and had chosen to serve as the staked goat with bitter reluctance. He agreed only after individuals within the offices of the Home Secretary concluded that his standing cover as a minor civil servant, combined with his actual standing in terms of clearance, made him the best choice to serve as the bait in their plan to uncover the woman recruiting moles for the Russians. Certainly his background knowledge made him the only man who could instantly determine whether to proceed, draw back—or terminate the foreign agent without hesitation or mercy.

The plan was for Mycroft to rendezvous with her at the food concession near the information kiosk in Section E on the first level, slightly before the game was expected to end. The position was far enough for a primary exit to make it difficult for their pigeon to simply zip out and disappear on them. It was a reasonable place for Mycroft to be found, in theory—the Mexico/Senegal match was expected to be a thriller.

But Lestrade’s nerves began to twitch before they even left Mycroft’s office in Whitehall—his lesser office, as Lestrade thought of it. It was the office that supported Mycroft’s cover role—a minor office for a man whose family and wealth warranted an office of his own, but who was not obviously of great importance. The room was smaller than his office in Legoland—the Thames-side building that housed MI6 headquarters. It was stuffier and less imaginative, without the sense of sweeping drama the headquarters office demonstrated. The desk, the files, the bookshelves, even the smaller portrait of the Queen all suggested a smaller man of no real significance.

Mycroft had dressed in one his sportier suits, and he was fidgeting.

Fidgeting. Mycroft Holmes was fidgeting. He checked his tie, fingering the perfectly placed “dimple” under the knot with restless fingers. He shot his cuffs and checked the presence of his cufflinks. He walked to the window and looked out, then stalked back.

“Relax,” Lestrade said. “Your driver will be here in a minute to take us over.”

“No. We’re going by cab,” Mycroft said, voice just slightly edgy. “The driver should be here soon, though. We should get there after the game lets out, with enough people still in the stadium to provide cover but most already gone.”

“Cab?”

Mycroft nodded, a sharp, tense gesture, without ever meeting Lestrade’s eyes. “My cover position doesn’t warrant a limo to drive me to the Olympics,” he said. “And only a madman would choose to try to drive over personally. So—a cab. Yes.”

“At least tell me it’s driven by one of our agents?”

“I’m afraid not. Verisimilitude in all things….’”

Lestrade watched his associate warily. He’d so seldom seen Mycroft tense—except when Sherlock was in trouble. Was that it?

“Heard from Sunshine lately?”

Mycroft shook his head, sharply—and unhappy gesture, but not so much so as to suggest any catastrophe in the offing. “No. He’s still on the hunt. The preparatory phases are always slow. Leg work…” He gave a dramatic little mock-shudder. “Better him than me.” The phone on his desk rang and he twitched, before darting to answer it. “Yes—yes. We’ll be down in a moment,” he said. Then, hanging up, he looked at Lestrade and said, “He’s here. The game’s apparently looking likely to run into extra time—be ready to deal with crowds.”

Lestrade had heard people announce impending root canal with greater cheer. Hell—he’d heard _Mycroft_ announce impending root canal with greater cheer.

On the ride over he risked asking. “What’s wrong? You’re like a cat on a hot stove.”

“Just not…fond…of field work,” Mycroft said, staring out the window of the cab. “Nesbit knows it, too. He worked with me years ago, before he transferred to the Home Secretary’s division. No doubt he’s having a merry time thinking he’s cornered me this way.”

“Come on, Mike—I’ve been out with you before. You’ve been fine. Better than fine. You’re a good agent.”

Mycroft’s thin lips thinned still further, and he didn’t answer.

His fingers toyed with the chain that ran across his stomach from his waistcoat buttonhole to his watch pocket. He rolled the short length of chain almost all the way around the tip of his index finger—then unwound. Then wound. Then unwound. Then wound…

“Really, Mike. What’s eating you?”

Mycroft sighed. “I’m not comfortable in crowds.”

Lestrade, who found a good crowd almost as energizing and fun as a great orgasm, tried to sound sympathetic. “Yeah, a bit like being caught in a multi-directional queue, I’ll give you that. Buy, hey—it’s supposed to be a hell of a game today. Mexico’s top-flight.”

“I’m not that fond of football, either.”

Lestrade managed to bite back a laugh at his associate's gloom. “Right Eeyore you are about it, too.” All right, he might not be laughing, but he suspected he was dimpling a bit and showing some laugh-lines. So fine—color him amused. Mycroft Holmes sulking about leg work and football in those melancholy, uneasy tones was priceless.

Indeed, Lestrade remained amused when they reached Wembley Park and he realized just how many people had turned out for the game. They were arriving on schedule, just as the game would have ended, but as Mycroft had suggested, the game had gone into extra time. The concourse area ringing the main seating section with the bars and concessions and information kiosks was humming with people rushing to grab one more beer or a final pie to fortify them for the battle between tied forces. The stadium hummed and rumbled and moaned as the fans reacted to every move on the field.

Lestrade himself lit up. His head rose, his eyes brightened, and he sniffed the air like a foxhound let out on a fall day for the big hunt, with the scent hanging low and hot above the grass.

“God—feel that!” he said, grinning. “Bloody hell, it’s like Christmas in August.” When Mycroft didn’t answer he glanced sidewise.

The other man seemed to have shrunk inside the lightweight blond wool of his suit. His eyes, which had picked up and echoed the bright sky-blue print of his tie and the darker coordinating blue of his pocket square, had lost that vibrant glow and now seemed winter gray. He was alert. If Lestrade was the hound at the hunt, Mycroft was the fox—and not a merry, jolly fox ready to lead the hunt on a wild steeplechase and escape cleverly at the end. No—this was a fox who feared the hunt. A fox who knew too well how many of his brothers had been torn to shreds before the hunt master could call the pack away.

“Mike?”

“I’m fine. Let’s get on with this. Where’s the food stall?”

“This way, mate.” Lestrade led them along the concourse toward the pie stall. “I’ll be back here, by the pillar. You need me, just look—I’ll be there. Andy-panda’s got backup planted all through the place. You’re going to be fine.”

“’Course I’ll be fine.” But Mycroft’s body language continued to communicate his discomfort.

“You’re going to spook the target,” Lestrade cautioned him. “She’ll know something’s off if you keep stressing.”

“I’m supposed to be a minor official on the very verge of selling my soul to the devil for a pittance. ‘Stressed’ seems perfectly in keeping, under the circumstances.”

Only, Lestrade thought, frowning, he didn’t think Mycroft was playing a role. He watched as the other man attempted a casual saunter to the pie stall, as he himself faded back and leaned against a pillar, hands in pockets. He supposed the hyper-aware poise, as though Mycroft hovered between fight and flight, could add a layer of conviction to his role—but in Lestrade’s opinion the man was honestly having to work to maintain his control.

He watched as Mycroft ordered a pie and a drink and leaned against the corner of the counter to eat, stubbornly ignoring the press of people lining up for their own pies. He’d placed himself as far to the end of the counter-run as he could and still hold his point and eat from the aluminum tin containing the food. He popped the top of his soda and squeezed a wedge of lemon over it, before dropping the crushed wedge into the cup and stirring gently with his straw. He set the cup on the lid, using it as an impromptu coaster. His eyes scanned the milling throng constantly, flicking back and forth, watching.

Lestrade frowned to himself, then risked breaking his own cover to flick open the connection to Anthea and murmur into his lapel pick-up, “Andy-panda? Is Mike really all right? He’s white as a sheet.”

Anthea paused, and the static crackled in the open link. After a moment she said, cautiously, “You didn’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Agoraphobia. Hates crowds. Hates places like the stadium. Give him the willies.”

“Mmmm.” That made some sense, he thought. “That why he doesn’t do field work?”

“Among other things, yeah,” she said. “He can. He’s good. Well—they wouldn’t have promoted him so high if he weren’t pretty good, now would they? He just… It’s been a long time, too.”

“He likely to crack?”

“No. He’s good. Miserable, not out of control.”

Lestrade nodded to himself. “Yeah. OK. So—not bad enough anyone felt they had to tell me?”

“More or less.”

“And his High and Mightiness hates admitting he’s merely mortal?”

“You know Holmeses. I swear they’re all cats.” She paused, then said, “OK, they’ve finished the ordinary period and they’re still tied. Thirty more minutes before this can end, now.”

“Well, damn,” Lestrade huffed. “Sounds like a hell of a game—and me stuck down here.”

“Yeah, Phillipson’s posted inside—he sends his condolences.” Anthea sounded amused, though.

“His condolences and four pounds will get me a pint with fifty pence back,” Lestrade grumbled. “Tell him he’s a lucky sod, yeah?”

“Take comfort—I turned him down for a date last week, so he’s not all that lucky,” Anthea consoled him.

Lestrade laughed and signed off, returning his full attention to Mycroft, who was dawdling over his pie, obviously trying to stretch out the excuse to stand at the stall waiting for his contact to arrive. He took dainty, fussy little bites, making Lestrade think all the more of a cat delicately lapping gravy from the plastic spoon. He grinned.

He liked Mycroft—always had. Probably always would. Well—he liked Sherlock, too, and if he could like Sherlock, how could he help but like his older brother, who loved the madboy so dearly and fought so hard to keep him from hurting or from being hurt? Mycroft could be stuffy, pompous, arrogant, enigmatic, cold—but Lestrade was a trained observer. He’d see a thousand fleeting, ephemeral glimpses of something gentler and sweeter hidden behind the chill expressions of a man Moriarty had known as “the Iceman,” and whose own team was known to call him “The Arctic Storm.” Watching him now, when his nerves and uncertainty stripped away a bit of his poise, triggered Lestrade’s own protective instincts even more than his role as backup and bodyguard already had.

A woman dressed like an athletic German tourist approached the stall and bought a tall soft drink and a bag of crisps. She slipped down the counter and came to a stop mere inches from Mycroft. Lestrade flicked the link to Anthea open again, saying “Contact.”

“Roger that. You’re on point?”

“Clear view, nothing blocking. But keep the others alert. Too much activity for me to be sure that will last.”

“Done.”

Lestrade clicked out.

The woman and Mycroft appeared to be in conversation. She passed him her bag of chips, and his long fingers dipped in, then out again. He didn’t, however, give the arranged signal to indicated she’d made a formal drop of any kind.

“Andy-pants, how’s your pick-up?”

“Reception’s crap—too much interference thanks to the game: all sorts of noise, tech-based and otherwise. But so far it’s going to plan, as near as we can tell. You see a problem?”

“No. Just confirming.”

“We’re fine. Over.”

Only moments later a dull roar grew and grew—the crowd inside the stadium going wild. There was a mad rush inside the concourse as fans who’d missed a critical play raced for the stadium anyway, to catch the reaction if not the action itself. Mycroft’s head went up with a jerk, and he gripped his food tightly, seeming to draw close to the stall for security. He turned and said something short and apparently terse to his contact. Judging by her response she was no less terse with him.

“Andy—I don’t have a clear line of fire any more.”

“That’s all right. Helms does. He’ll keep the boss covered.”

“Ok.”

The tide toward the stadium ebbed. The tumult inside surged, rose in a thundering crescendo, faded, rose again. Mycroft leaned closer to the woman, his body language easing somewhat as his mind fastened on the process of observation and analysis. He was frowning slightly. It was an expression that might only mean her murmured words were puzzling—but Lestrade felt a flutter of bat-wings in his stomach, and a midnight shiver of dismay. To him that wasn’t Mycroft’s “I’m listening” face—it was his “there’s something odd here” face.

“Andy, something’s wrong.”

“You sure?” she asked. “What we’re picking up all sounds kosher.”

“No. Something is wrong. No idea what. I’m not sure Mycroft knows—but something isn’t working for him. Get our people lined up.”

“Will do. Your orders?”

It always stunned him when things happened in the field, and suddenly command shifted from Mycroft to him. That was what Mycroft trusted him for, though: Mycroft considered himself a strategist, and one of the best. Lestrade, though, was a tactician: the kind of man who could put together an improvised drugs raid to take the piss out of a renegade consultant, for example. The kind of man who could make things work on the ground.

He considered, and said, “I want to get Mike out of there. For the sake of the plan I’d as soon not let his contact know that’s what we’ve done, though.  Look, have your people ready, but keep them well back unless things go to hell. I’m going to try to pull this off peacefully without anyone thinking twice. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Lestrade did a quick review of his status. He was dressed for the setting. Unlike Mycroft, in his tawny custom tailored suit, Lestrade was dressed in jeans, work boots, and a T-shirt printed with a union jack—just the sort of thing a lad might wear to a game, even if Great Britain’s team wasn’t playing. A cheerful patriotism that would seem crass even to a lower-class bloke seemed more in order when hosting the bloody Olympics, right? He had a Glock holstered at the small of his back, hidden under the drape of the T. He was wired, he was covered by a team of eight of Mycroft’s best marksmen.

He started toward the food kiosk with an easy lope, raising his hand, drawing his breath to shout “Oi, Holmes!” His words were lost, though, as the crowd in the stadium went wild.

“Time’s up,” Anthea shouted in his ear. “Fuck-fuck-fuckity-fuck-fuck. The early birds are going to be out the exits before…”

He didn’t hear the rest of what she said, though. As Mycroft’s head came up and his eyes flared in dismay at the joyous rage of the mob about to take flight, the woman’s hand moved, taking advantage of Mycroft’s distraction. Her palm passed over Mycroft’s lid-less cup and was gone, even as Mycroft reached reflexively for the cup, nerves demanding he do something—anything—to deflect his own nervous reaction.

“Shit.” Lestrade was already in motion, racing across the concourse, barreling toward Mycroft. Even as the taller man raised the cup and straw to his mouth, Lestrade shouted, bringing years of work on the streets and with a team to bear.’

“Oi! Is ‘at you, m’ lover?” He let his accent go thick and West County, and he plastered a wide, fond smile on his face. “Haven’t see you for dog’s years, Holmes! Here, give us a kiss!” He smashed into the other man, quite intentionally knocking the cup aside and sending Mycroft’s arm flying as he tackled the taller man, hugging him tight. He tip-toed high, and nuzzled his nose into the turn of Mycroft’s neck, murmuring, “Dosed your drink, idiot.” Then he pulled back and bussed Mycroft on the cheek before setting him free. “Jesus, lad, lookit you! All grown up and fine, aren’t you, now?”

Mycroft pulled himself to his full height, looking down that long nose and scowling. “And look at you,” he said with far more distaste. “Not changed a bit—the same lad you were at twenty-five. Still haven’t grown up?”

“Not if I can help it, I haven’t,” Lestrade chortled, and spun to face the woman, forcing Mycroft behind him. He shoved out his hand. “You two friends? Good on you. Any friend of my boy here’s a friend of mine.”

He was pulling a trick he’d learned back when he was younger—when he hadn’t grown into himself and he’d been a target too often. He’d puffed his personality up to three of four times its natural size, demanding attention, grinning like a looby and hogging center stage. He slid another step forward and to the side, placing Mycroft even more fully under his protection and forcing the woman to step back.

She scowled—and reached toward her jacket. Lestrade’s own hand drifted—while Anthea screamed, “No, no, no, fuck, Lestrade, they’re coming!”

For a moment he thought she meant backup—the men and women stationed around the concourse to protect him and Mycroft. Then the crowd hit like an ocean breaker—thousands of people determined to make it out the door first to reach their transport: to find cars, buses, cabs, bikes—but to escape before the press solidified and movement slowed to a halt.

Anthea was swearing frantically in his hidden earpiece. The woman, panicked, lunged toward Mycroft, and Lestrade saw the dark sheen of blued steel. As Lestrade stepped back, drawing, he crashed into Mycroft, who reflexively grabbed at the shorter man’s shoulders to keep them both upright.

The woman steadied her aim.

Lestrade spun and roped an arm around Mycroft’s waist, throwing them both behind the cover of the stall’s sculpted frame. “Run,” he shouted in Mycroft’s face. He grabbed the man’s wrist, tugged him into the lead, then ran, releasing the other agent so as not to slow him. He placed himself between the woman’s weapon and his charge.

Mycroft ran. God, he ran! Those long legs flew out, and he twisted and spun like a ballet dancer as he threaded the mob. He dodged, darted, set up a weaving path, ducking behind cover, jagging in unexpected directions, looking for a safe exit.

There was barely room to move. Sometimes they weren’t running, they were wading through a mudslide of human bodies, creeping along. Once Mycroft was forced to turn to ease past a lumbering family burdened with backpacks and completely oblivious to their surroundings, who blocked a primary traffic flow to consult the GPS on the father’s phone. Lestrade caught a glimpse of Mycroft’s expression. He’d have been perfect cast as the lunatic scientist in a horror movie—wild-eyed and brilliant and on the edge of breakdown all at once.

Lestrade wasn’t quite sure he knew when he realized they were being followed—and not by their own people. All he knew was they had to escape and disappear into the wind, losing themselves until they could take stock. He shouted to Mycroft, “Out. Steal a car.”

He had no idea what Mycroft thought—only that the other man kept running, but angled toward the first exit. In the process his leather sole slipped on the polished concrete and he went down, shouting in pain.

Lestrade bent down. He grabbed Mycroft’s arm. He hauled, and hitched his shoulder under the other man’s. He half-carried him toward the exit.

They were out in the long, angled afternoon sun, outside Wembley Park, heading for the circular drive.

“Cab,” he panted, heading for a one of the boxy black sedans.

“No,” Mycroft said. “Not safe enough. Shuttle.” He jerked his head toward a shuttle just creeping away from the kerb.

Lestrade dug in his pocket, finding his MI5 ID. “Right. Follow me.” He unhitched and sprinted hard and fast toward the shuttle, pounding on the accordion door and slapping his ID against the glass.

The driver braked, scowling, but cracked the door just as Mycroft limped up, favoring his knee. Lestrade shoved the other man aboard, then glared at an aging couple in garish tourist clothing. “Move back,” he commanded, flashing ID again. Then he grabbed the pipe upright behind the driver. He leaned forward, and growled, “Drive….”

“Where?”

“Away,” Lestrade said, and turned away to kneel by Mycroft. “Give me a minute and I’ll call Anthea,” he said.

“Already hit auto-dial,” Mycroft said. “She knows we’re on the wind.”

“What next?”

“Bolt hole,” Mycroft said. “I have—“

“You were the target,” Lestrade cut in. “None of your bolt holes can be trusted. They may have done their homework. Mine or Sherlock’s.”

“Yours, then,” Mycroft said, and leaned back into the padded seat of the shuttle. He closed his eyes and clamped his lips tight.

“You all right?”

Mycroft just nodded—the kind of nod that left Lestrade sure he wasn’t all right at all.

“Your leg?”

“A strain, I suspect. I’ll do.”

A strain could as easily be a torn tendon…but Lestrade suspected it was less pain and more the events of the past fifteen minutes.

He’d deal with it later. He dialed a cab and told it to wait for them at a kerb outside the Greenman Pub. Then he swiveled in place, crouched on his heels, hanging on the upright post. “Let us off at the Greenman on Dagmar,” he said. “Once you’ve done that you can go on your way—just forget we ever came aboard.”

“Hey, if you’re on the run I want protection,” the driver grumbled.

Lestrade sighed and pulled one of Anthea’s cards out of his wallet. “Call her and tell her Greg referred you. She’ll take care of you.”

“MI5?”

“MI6. Not that it makes much difference from your point of view.”

In mere minutes they were pulling up at the pub. The cab was waiting. Lestrade helped Mycroft rise, but had to half carry him down the steps of the shuttle. The driver was pulling away almost before they’d both hit the pavement.

Once in the cab Lestrade gave a second address.

Mycroft, leaning heavily against the seat back, raised his eyebrows high over tight-shut eyes. “Good address,” he said. “Furnished time-share, if I recall correctly?”

“More or less. I cut a deal with the building manager. He’s got a supply kit locked in storage for me, and I can have any open suite available.”

“Sensible,” Mycroft said. Then, wearily, he added, “Do they have a lift?” His fingers gripped his knee tightly, as though the pressure of his fingers could choke back the pain.

“Yeah. They’ve got a lift. And I’ve got pain killers that could knock a horse out, and support bandages in my kit. We’ll see you through.”

Mycroft merely nodded.

All in all it was a half-hour before they were safely ensconced in Lestrade’s bolt-hole. It was a nice flat, he though—nicer than his own, really. But that had been part of the idea: someplace upscale, not down. Someplace secure and posh, where it would be hard to break in and kill an operative without being noticed. Someplace with working security cameras and top-notch alarms and heat and plumbing and a comfy bed.

“We’ll have to share,” he said absently, as he rummaged through the two cartons the manager had brought upstairs for him. He pulled out a bottle of pain killers and checked the date. They were about a month over their sell-by, but sell-by isn’t actual shelf-life. He figured they’d do the job. He shook them out on his palm. “They’re Dilaudid,” he said. “It’s a morphine.”

“Technically it’s a—“

“Whatever. Can you take it?”

Mycroft nodded. Lestrade went to the kitchen and filled a glass with water, then came back, handing Mycroft a dose and the glass. He watched while the other man gulped the pills down.

“What did you mean—‘We’ll have to share’?” Mycroft was still, not looking. He was too pale, and unnaturally listless.

“Bed. There’s only the one.”

“I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

“Bugger that.” He sighed. “Look, this is no time to go all chick-flick on me. We eat, we sleep, we lay low, we let Anthea and the team do their jobs. You let me strap up that knee. Maybe we watch some telly. Read books on our cell phones. No reason for melodrama because it’s one bed. Unless you’re afraid I’ll molest you.”

Mycroft flushed, and shook his head, still not opening his eyes. “No.”

“Then fine,” Lestrade said, and proceeded to get Mycroft’s preferences on curry so he could order take-away.

When they’d eaten, Mycroft said, “I think I need to lie down, now.” His voice was blurry and his diction softened and slurred.

“Yeah. Hang on and I’ll help you,” Lestrade said. The other man was already stripped down to his pants below, having dropped his trousers hours before so Mycroft could tape his knee. All they had to do was ease him out of his waistcoat and shirt, which Lestrade carefully hung over a chair-back with his trousers and jacket.

“I should wash and brush my teeth,” Mycroft whined, sitting on the loo.

Lestrade, smiling, handed him a flannel soaked in hot water and wrung out. “Wash your face. Brush your teeth. Shower in the morning.”

“But I smell…” Mycroft fussed, peevish and childish in reaction to his shock, his pain, and his medication. “I don’t want to smell.”

Lestrade chuckled, and handed him a toothbrush loaded with toothpaste. “You’re fine. Fresh as a daisy. Worry about it in the morning.”

Mycroft attempted to mumble something through the toothbrush and foam. Lestrade grunted a wordless agreement, and helped his friend rinse his mouth. Then he carefully helped him into the bedroom, leaned down to draw open the bed, and helped him down. “There you go, all nice and cozy,” he said.

“Why did you knock the cup out of my hand?” Mycroft said, sleepy and no longer fully aware at all. “I was thirsty.”

“We’ll talk in the morning,” Lestrade said, and pulled the blankets up over Mycroft’s shoulders as the man curled up like a tadpole not yet hatched. Lestrade was happy to see he could—that his knee allowed that much movement. With luck the injury would prove minor.

“You sleep,” he said.

“Mmmmm-hmmmm,” Mycroft said—and sighed and shifted and was lost and dreaming.

Lestrade smiled, grim but fond.

He went out to the sitting room and called Anthea using the backup phone he’d kept stored in his supplies. “Hey, love. Me.”

“Where are you? Is the boss all right? Where _are_ you?”

“On the wind and better you don’t know where unless you’ve got things sorted. Report.”

“Woman’s been taken. The Russians are claiming she has diplomatic immunity. We’re likely to have to give her up.”

“What did she put in Mike’s cup?”

She said something both long and stunningly crude. “Polonium-210.”

“Same stuff they used on Litvinenko,” he growled—not a question, but a statement. “What—they’re using it as a calling card?”

“Sign their work,” she said. “We got it cleaned up, though—none left at Wembley.”

“Well. That’s good, I suppose. Is the Foreign Office going to help us nail the bitch?”

“No. Home Office is running interference. Nesbit’s worried we’ll start a war.”

“Nesbit,” Lestrade said. “He’s the one who made sure Mycroft was assigned to this spot, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

They were silent. Then Lestrade said, “All right. Do we take him down, or do we leave him in place and use his arse till we’ve wrung the bastard dry?”

“Leave him in place for now,” Anthea said. “We need to know how far the rot has spread, and why. Need to know if its systemic or not.”

Lestrade nodded, and rubbed his face. “Ok. Fair enough. You and Mike can work out more in the morning, when he’s awake.”

“Is he all right?”

“Wrenched his knee. Had a bit of a shock. Dosed up on Dilaudid. Out cold. Other than that—how bad is his agoraphobia? Really, I mean, not just the quick-and-dirty for everyday and for people with no clearance.”

“Usually not bad. Hit the wrong buttons? Bad. He doesn’t panic. He does withdraw, hard. The worst part is he’s ashamed of it. He thinks he’s really supposed to be James Bond, M, and Winston Churchill in a perfect bespoke suit. Instead he’s Mycroft Holmes and he avoids crowds.”

“We were stuck in the stampede today. When the game ended. Thousands of people: it was like a wildlife adventure with more wildebeest than you can imagine. Full body contact, people shouting around him. He’d been edgy anyway. Then the bitch tried to poison him, then shoot us, then we were on the run. Then he wrenched his knee bad enough to take the vinegar out of him. What can I expect?”

“Depression. Withdrawal. He won’t admit it.”

“What do I do?”

“What I do is make him hot tea and feed him biscuits and admire his suits and play his favorite Coltrane. He’s fond of ‘The Love Supreme.’”

“Who isn’t?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir. Mr. Holmes assures me, though, that those who aren’t are subhuman cretins.”

“Nice to know.” He sat heavily, then, and prodded at the remains of the raita in the take-away box. “All right. I need you to send for Mary Morstan. Not John—Mary. She’s got med training, she knows Mike, and she’s not watched the way Watson is. And she’s a million times better at hiding in plain sight. Let her know we need some help with Mike’s knee—and more help with security. And let her know I’m sending her on a shopping trip for us after. We can’t live on Padma’s Lotus Palace forever. Can you do that for me?”

“Of course, sir.”

They went through a few more minor arrangements, and then Lestrade signed off. He showered, slipped into a pair of drawstrings that had been packed in the cartons, brushed his teeth, and eased into the bed beside Mycroft. The man was still curled like a tadpole, arms tucked in tight to his chest, head ducked low. Lestrade turned until they lay back to back and punched a pillow high up under his ear, supporting his head. One arm sprawled high, the other lay along his side. One knee hitched over the edge, letting his calf hang over the side. He was asleep in minutes.

He woke the next morning with Mycroft clinging tight, face pressed to the back of his skull. The taller man was breathing like someone already waking—and waking in pain.

“Shhh. Lemme go, champ,” Lestrade murmured. “Lemme out and I’ll make tea and get you some pills.”

“Oh, do stop squirming, you pestilent brat,” Mycroft growled. “I already read to you once.” Then he woke in an instant, and swore. “You’re not Sherlock.”

“Should I be?”

“Only if we’ve gone back in time and he’s been creeping into bed insisting I read him more Treasure Island.”

“No time travel, no little blue box, no sonic screwdriver. I think we can eliminate that one.”

“Then you should not be Sherlock,” Mycroft said, stiffly, and tried to sit up, only to drop back onto the mattress. “Sod-all, that hurts.”

“Can your bladder wait say fifteen minutes for pills to cut in?”

“It will bloody have to,” Mycroft said, grim and a bit desperate.

Lestrade got up, found the pills and ran a new glass of water, and delivered them to Mycroft, helping him rise high enough to swallow them down without choking. “You lie there and doze until you have to either get up or pee the bed,” he said. “When you’re ready, I’ll help you to the loo.” He was fairly sure if he’d been telepathic he’d have been impressed with the vitriol Mycroft was thinking…but the man just nodded and lay still, eyes closed and face too pale.

Lestrade pottered out to the kitchen, retrieved his limited supply of dry goods from the cartons, and proceeded to put together a simple breakfast of instant porridge with brown sugar, a pot of hot tea, and two tubes of shortbread cookies. He used the loo. He brushed his teeth and smoothed out his rumpled hair. He shaved. He was just finishing when Mycroft moaned from the other room.

“Given the choice between agony and modern plumbing, I choose plumbing.”

“On my way, sunshine,” Lestrade called back, and helped the other man limp heavily to the WC. He gestured to the flannels, the razor, the  two toothbrushes (“Yours is the red one.”), then removed himself, leaving Mycroft to do for himself, be it ever so sloppy under the circumstances. When the bathroom door swung open and Mycroft leaned heavily on the frame, looking both fresher and more drained, he said, “Breakfast either in the lounge or the bedroom, your pick.”

“Lounge,” Mycroft grumbled. “If I stay in bed my transformation into my little brother will be complete. Drugs, damage, decadence, and bed rest all accomplished within less than a full day.”

The rest of the morning seemed to swirl by. Mary came. Mary re-taped Mycroft’s knee and assured him that it seemed to be a sprain, not a torn tendon or ligament. She was briefed. She was debriefed. She was sent for groceries. She returned with groceries and a large box of pastries from the bakery. “Because pampering doesn’t hurt.” She promised to keep John out of it until they all had a better idea of what was happening—and promised equally to contact Anthea. She made tuna mayonnaise and a diced tomato and onion salad. Then she was gone.

Mycroft and Lestrade ate. Mycroft took more pills. Mycroft mournfully begged help to the bed, and tumbled into sleep.

Lestrade watched “Galaxy Quest” on his cell phone then pulled up the latest Pratchett and chuckled his way through until early evening, when he woke Mycroft, dragged him to the sofa in the lounge, and proceeded to fry up chops and onions and potatoes and sliced tomatoes and served dinner. He brewed more tea, popped the caps on two soft drinks, and shook out two more pain killers for Mycroft, then laid them all out nicely on the coffee table in the lounge and set his cell phone to play a jazz station.

When they were done, Mycroft, tucked at the far corner of the sofa, said, softly, “Thank you.”

Lestrade nodded. “No worries.”

“No. Seriously. Thank you. I…I deal badly with crowds. It’s one of the primary reasons I removed myself from the field. I can’t trust my own reactions under certain kinds of pressure.” He ducked his head and picked at the pajama bottom Mary had purchased earlier. “Yesterday was a perfect storm. I apologize for putting you in danger, and can only offer my deep appreciation of your efforts to bring us both through intact.”

Well, Lestrade thought, looking down the sofa with a frown. It couldn’t have been put more prettily or with more humility. Coming from a Holmes, it was…unexpected.

“Just doing my job,” he said.

“Quite well, under conditions above and beyond,” Mycroft returned. “I’m in your debt.”

“Now this is getting creepy,” Lestrade said. “You’re a frippin’ Holmes. Insult me or I’ll think they managed to brainwash you in the half-hour you and that woman talked.”

Mycroft laughed, then. “No. But—I suppose I can congratulate myself for choosing the best partner in the field.”

Lestrade laughed. “Flattery will get you everywhere. I’m easy.”

The quip was tossed out easily—lightly. Lestrade expected a return volley. Mycroft was bright, tart, witty, and seldom fazed by the things of the world. A serve that simple deserved a crushing return volley.

Instead Mycroft seemed to stutter to a shaken stop, blinking and then blushing and looking away.

Lestrade looked for a line to cover the silence. He looked again—and again found nothing. By then it was too late. The empty, wordless abyss swallowed the room whole.

Lestrade frowned, trying to work it through, and came up with an unexpected sum.

“Are you—do you… Are you attracted to me?”

Mycroft’s jaw clenched, and he stared fixedly at the far wall, face flaming red for the first time that day, instead of wan and pale.

It wasn’t anything he’d even considered. In over ten years' association, Mycroft had shown no sign of any such desire. Lestrade knew the man was gay—hell, Sherlock made bloody damned sure any of his friends who met both him and his brother knew that Mycroft was gay and that Sherlock wasn’t all that comfortable with it. Being gay, though, didn’t turn a man into an indiscriminate fuck factory looking to shag every man who came through the office door. He’d always just assumed he wasn’t Mycroft’s type…and had lived easily enough with it, in spite of the fact that Mycroft was his own type, when he swung to the gay side of bisexual.

 In the itchy silence, Mycroft twitched, and forced himself to speak. “Attractive, yes. That said—it’s not something that’s likely to matter. I’m hardly active.”

“You’re civilized, not celibate,” Lestrade snapped. “Hell, Mike, I’ve known you’re gay for years. Never seen you misbehave toward anyone—or heard of it second hand. A gentleman. You don’t have to try to convince me you’re dead from the waist down for me to trust you. As if… “ He stopped himself, suddenly feeling as uneasy and flushed as Mycroft.

“No,” Mycroft said, grim and determined. “I mean—I mean I don’t. That. You don’t have to worry.”

“I know you don’t. Never seen anyone with higher standards. Never cross the line between work and play.”

Mycroft sighed…. “Whatever. You don’t have to worry.”

“I wasn’t worrying.”

“I mean, after this morning.”

“Not exactly threatened by you waking up thinking I was your brother—unless there’s something really hinky you two aren’t telling me.”

Mycroft scowled down the sofa. “That is singularly repulsive. Besides, Sherlock kicks. Only an idiot would want to sleep with Sherlock if he could possibly avoid it.”

The laughter cracked out, sharp and sudden, and Lestrade whooped. Mycroft looked at him, and risked a tentative smile.

“No worries,” Lestrade said, grinning.

Mycroft nodded.

They played three games of gin rummy. Mycroft won all of them.

Lestrade helped him to the loo, doled out his painkillers, helped him to bed, then took care of his own hygiene and joined him.

They lay back to back again—Mycroft once again a fetal tadpole, Lestrade a sprawled snow leopard on a cliff edge.

In the silent, wakeful darkness Lestrade turned it over and over…and concluded, in disturbed pity, that Mycroft was telling the truth. Whatever his younger brother thought, Mycroft Holmes wasn’t “doing it.”

Then he wondered if Mycroft Holmes ever had.

Listening to the other man breathing--not asleep, not even pretending to be asleep--he concluded that the answer was almost certainly no.

“I’m going to go read some more,” he said. “I’m not falling off. I’ll be in later.”

Mycroft murmured wordless assent.

Lestrade read until he heard Mycroft fall into drugged sleep. Only then did he slide back between the sheets and drop off.

He woke to an empty bed and the sound of Mycroft on a mobile phone, talking. When he came back out Mycroft said, with artificial brightness, “We’re coming in from the cold,” and turned away one split second too late to hide the expression of mixed relief and fear and regret.

Lestrade memorized the look, though, and pondered these things in his heart.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: I muddled my own chronology in last night’s post, having Lestrade send for Mary Watson at a time when she’s still supposed to be Mary Morstan who’s just started working for John, and mentioning John and Sherlock when Sherlock’s supposed to be “dead.”
> 
> I usually don’t slip like that—but I did. I’ve fixed it. HOWEVER, we will now jump forward in time to soon after “The Empty Hearse," but before "The Sign of Three."

 

March, 2013, London

“Did you tell Sherlock there was an assassination attempt on you last year?” Lestrade asked during one of his meetings with Mycroft.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mycroft scoffed. “He’d only send condolences to Nesbit if he knew.”

“Mike…” Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “Really, you two seem to think ‘communication’ is a dirty word. What happened to keeping your people in the loop?”

“As Sherlock is so quick to assert, he’s not ‘one of my people.’ Merely a consulting freelancer whose activities sometimes coordinate with mine.”

Lestrade sighed. “He’s Sherlock,” he tried to point out, knowing already that it wasn’t going to do any good. Somehow in a matter of months since Sherlock’s return, he and his brother had managed to get themselves in knots again. “You know he doesn’t…”

“…Mean it?” Again Mycroft scoffed. “Don’t be any more idiotic than you have to. Of course he means it. In any case, he’s not interested in work these days. He’s too busy planning Dr. Watson’s _wedding_. The last time we spoke he was too busy investigating the lives of Ms. Marston’s bridesmaids to focus on the French hostage in Somalia. Thus explaining that particular failure.” He glowered and gazed mournfully at his computer screen. “The world is all at sixes and sevens and Brother Mine is doing background checks on bridesmaids.”

“Mike—someone tried to kill you last year. Someone you decided to leave in place in the Home Office. Sherlock might need to know that someday. I doubt even he would argue that bridesmaids are more important than telling him someone tried to take you out with polonium-210.” When Mycroft raised his eyes only to roll them at Lestrade, he raised his hands and sighed. “All right. Just saying. What else do we have on the agenda?”

“Ugly Duckling’s coming in next week. Fast in, fast out. Can you rendezvous with her on Saturday at her hotel, or should I assign someone else?”

“Rather you chose someone else,” Lestrade said. “In all honesty, it’s not going to do my cover any good if we get caught together. What about Anthea?”

“Too close to me. Very few know you work with me. Everyone who knows about me at all knows Anthea’s one of mine.”

Lestrade grunted. “There is that. But—honest to God, Mike, I’m a bad pick. She swings wrong for me, I don’t kink right for her, and if I’m caught it rips my Met standing to hell and back. Sherlock’s a better choice. Thanks to John the whole world knows how much Sherlock admires the Dominant Duck.”

“Yes, yes, very droll—but again, Sherlock’s otherwise occupied.”

“Bridesmaids.”

“And getting the invitations sent out on time.”

“Has he considered a career as a consulting wedding planner?”

“I have offered the suggestion. He was not amused.” Mycroft sighed, and leaned on the heel of his hand. “Very well. I’ll find someone. I do find your objections reasonable.”

“Good of you. What’s the Duck back in the UK for?”

“I need to confer with her.”

“Then why don’t you rendezvous with her, for God’s sake? You’re only supposed to be a ‘minor civil servant.’ Consorting with a dominatrix would hardly even raise eyebrows. It’s practically a job requirement, when you think about it.”

The room fell silent, and the look Mycroft shot him would have frozen high proof vodka.

“I don’t do that.”

The echo back to the night almost a half-year before sang in Lestrade’s veins—a subject he’d worked hard not to think about. One he’d thought about in spite of that. Even so, he could hardly fold now—not on a professional point. “It’s a role, Mike. A cover story. It’s not like you have to strip down and say, ‘Yes, mistress.’ But I can’t think of a better excuse for you to have a private tete-a-tete with the Duckling. People really don’t ask ‘Why did you spend five hours behind locked doors with a dominatrix?’ The answer’s so obvious even geniuses forget to ask whether it’s also true.”

Mycroft’s jaw set. “I have a reputation to consider.”

“And I don’t?”

“Not in the same way. You’re not a target in the same way.” He looked away uneasily, then said, as though out of thin air, “The preliminary phases of the inquiry into Charles Augustus Magnussen begin tomorrow. Lady Smallwood has been asking me to contribute—to find something she can use against him.”

Lestrade’s chin came up as he considered the conflicted currents suggested by that comment. “Does she know we’ve been using him?”

“No. Nor can she. She still trusts Nesbit. Nesbit still trusts Magnussen. Magnussen’s still our best methods of feeding false information to Nesbit. The Duckling is still our best method of feeding false information to CAM. CAM is still trying to gain leverage on me.”

“And you’re still trying to find a way to take down Magnussen that doesn’t instantly set half of the heads of Europe at each other’s throats as Magnussen fights back with all the information in his keeping. Or start a panic if he dies without the information present and accounted for.”

Mycroft nodded. Lestrade swore—more mentally than aloud, though he did risk a muttered, “Bloody hell.” At last he said, grudgingly, “All right, all right. I’ll go. Been wanting to see if she’s half what she’s rumored to be anyway, ever since she drugged Sherlock and got away with that camera. But you’re bankrolling it. I can’t afford to dally with the Duck.”

Mycroft didn’t actually look that much happier, but he nodded. “Of course. I’ll arrange a briefing on the material we need to convey to the Duckling, and to set up a less obvious rendezvous with me—one that can’t be tracked. She’ll have questions only I can field.”

“What’s she like?”

Mycroft looked up, then, a frown between his brows. He clearly spent time thinking—then blushed. “She’s perceptive,” he said. The words were terse and uneasy. “Very perceptive.”

Lestrade laughed, taken aback. “What the hell did she say to you, then?”

“Nothing.”

Oooooh, lie-lie-lie! Lestrade’s truth-detector was screaming out the falsehood of that answer. He considered the other man—and fought back a smile. He’d already heard how she’d played Sherlock…

“Did she try to play you, and fail?”

“She knew better,” Mycroft snapped—and then stopped in a way that made it clear that half the problem was that she’d been perceptive enough to know not to try. He changed the topic, growling, “Magnussen’s convinced that we’ve got agents inside the Russian Mafia promoting resistance to Putin’s regime. We want him to keep thinking that—it’s got Nesbit running in tight little circles trying to find what’s not there while the real operatives focus on the arms trade, which is more vital. We’ve developed a fairly extensive and credible amount of evidence and innuendo for the Duck to pass on to Magnussen on his next recreational encounter with her. You’ll want to arrange for a few hours later this week for Anthea to give you a preliminarly briefing and for me to do follow-up. Can you arrange it?”

Lestrade thought of the long, lonely evenings that had been his lot since the divorce. A night at a pub here, a movie there, take in a live show some other time. The occasional date. The truth was his evenings were empty when he didn’t have a case that was pressing. “Yeah. I can do it.” Then he added, “And I need a favor in return. We’re increasingly sure someone’s actually behind the Waters family’s stuff—and helping get them out. Thanks to your bloody brother and his bloody assumption that my universe is organized around him, they look like to slip out in trial again. Think you can work out who’s advising them? It…it has a familiar stink.”

Mycroft nodded, and the rest of the meeting was given over to Lestrade briefing his MI6 colleague on the antics of the Waters clan.

 

The Ugly Duckling had reserved the King’s Suite with a river view at the Royal Horseguards Hotel. Lestrade was chuckling under his breath as he looked out over the river toward MI6 Headquarters when the Duckling made her entrance dressed in a white peignoir trimmed in billows of white swansdown.

“It has a history with British Intelligence,” she volunteered, drifting gracefully over with two champagne flutes in one hand and an open bottle of champagne in the other.

“I know,” he said, accepting his and waiting as she poured. “I’ve heard tales from the war era. Quite the history.”

She filled her own glass, put the champagne bottle on a nearby table, and clinked her glass against his. “I like to think of all the beautiful women who did their all for England here,” she said. “Patriotism is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?”

He laughed, then. “You’re right terrible, you.”

“Absolutely wicked,” she purred. “It’s what people like.”

“I bet it is.”

She studied him, cocking her head. He’d dressed for the part again—a man past his first youth, alone, of just high enough rank and income to treat himself to a rare indulgence, but terrified of being caught. A man whose reputation couldn’t stand much soot clinging to it. He’d dressed well, but not too well: tight black jeans to show he was still fit, a good white shirt open at the neck one more button than was strictly necessary, a modest gold chain with a St. Michael’s medallion around his neck. His best sports jacket—the one too good even for court, that he reserved for rare social events when he hoped to pass as a “sharp dresser.” The kind of blend of dressy casual common to men of his age and class.

“No need to ask what people like about you,” she said, smirking. “If you ever need work I’ve got clients who’d love to collaborate.”

He dared a small, not entirely reluctant smile in return. “Already holding down two jobs,” he said. “Speaking of which…” He glanced around. “Let’s get comfortable. I’ve got a lot to tell you. My people say your place is clean, but I don’t trust them to get it right ever time. Mind if I check?”

“Not at all—though I do my own sweeps daily,” she said. “I’ve got a vested interest in privacy.”

Once Lestrade was sure they were secure, the two settled on the sofa, and the long briefing began.

“He’s vermin,” she said, as they worked through the information intended for Magnussen. “The only good thing is he’s so invested in thinking of the worst possible explanation for what people do, he sometimes forgets he’s making it up… that people can be better than he thinks. Not that he’d care. He’s…evil.”

“There are those who think the same of you.”

“No.” She scowled and looked bleakly out the window. “Oh, perhaps some who don’t actually know anything but my profession. But no one who knows me. It’s one thing to play the game. What he does is….sick.”

“And you should know?”

She flashed a fierce, brilliant glare at him, and smiled with fangs. “Yes. I should know. You don’t seem to understand: I know what people like. What all of them like. The ones who just want to let go. The ones who like to think they’re quite naughty. The ones who can’t cry until they’re properly whipped and chained. The ones who want a real rape under the guise of ‘recreation.’ I know the good ones and the bad ones and the sad ones and the adorable ones—and Magnussen’s pure, unadulterated evil distilled down to the point you can see the heat shimmer on his surface. If he could, he’d piss on babies and rut on saints tied to the altar…and lick their tears from their eyes while he did.”

Lestrade shivered. “How do you…?”

“Control him?”

He nodded.

“He knows the wrong things about me.”

“The wrong things?”

“The ones that aren’t really true. The reins he thinks he holds can’t control me—they can only tell me more about him.”

He frown. “You know why the…boss…isn’t seeing you here, don’t you?”

She nodded. “I’m just the Ugly Duckling. He’s the sitting duck and he’s in Magnussen’s sights.” She glanced at Lestrade. “Take care of the silly fool. There’s nothing more helpless—nothing at all—than true innocence. It’s like a whiteboard waiting to be scribbled on. Someday it’s going to occur to Magnussen that if there’s nothing on the British Government, then it doesn’t matter if he makes things up. No evidence is no evidence, and people prefer to believe that a lack of evidence means someone is lying. And it won’t be Magnussen they’ll suspect.”

He heard the warning—understood it. Now he knew what the Duckling saw too clearly—the reason Mycroft was uneasy with her perceptions.

“I’ll warn him,” he said.

“I already have.” She rose, her long neck holding her delicate head high. She flowed across the floor, so graceful, so pale. The swansdown shivered with her motion, stirred by the air of her passage. “I will again. Tell him to send Agent Patrice for me on Friday. We’ll have dinner at the Ledbury and go back to her flat. From there he can send a cab to take me to him. She’s my type. People will believe it and look no further.”

“Will do,” he said, and rose to leave.

“No,” she said. “You can’t leave looking like that.”

He laughed. “Why not? I arrived looking like this.”

“Exactly,” she said, and flowed up him, fingers raking his short hair, hands mussing his shirtfront, lips leaving crimson brands. “I have a reputation,” she said. “I can’t afford for people to think I’m slipping.” She smiled against his mouth, and said, “Tell Mycroft I’ll see him on Friday—and give him a kiss for me.” Then she lingered, suckled, and stepped away.

Lestrade shivered. “Uh… I’m not sure I can pass that one on. I’ll let him know you’re thinking of him, maybe…?”

She chuckled, deep and wicked, and said, “That’s no fun. Trust me—pass it on. I know what people…like.”

 

Her kiss clung to his mind for weeks, tying him to her—tying him to Mycroft. He couldn’t think of one without thinking of the other—of what it would have been like to meet with Mycroft and slide against him, murmuring, “She sent you this,” and stretch up and claim the other man’s mouth. A kiss that had been erotic in the taking would have been as erotic in the giving.

He cursed her perception—her apparent instinct telling her the kiss would appeal as much to him either way…perhaps more because it partook of both: two elegant swans, the virgin and the harlot.

He’d spent years trying to educate himself out of crusty, rusty, weary stereotypes like that. He was a detective, a cop, a bisexual, divorced, a spy. He had dozens of reasons for distrusting those tropes. Apparently no one had communicated that to his libido.

“Are you all right, Lestrade?” Mycroft asked when they next met.

“Fine,” he snapped back. “What about you? You’re edgy lately.”

Mycroft glanced away. “Overworked,” he said….and again Lestrade heard a lie. “Nesbit’s hunting down agents in the Russian Mafia. So far we’ve kept our real agents well away from him, but it’s worrying.”

“Yeah, of course. You’re a busy man, you. Going to be at John and Mary’s do?”

Mycroft sniffed. “Hardly. Miss Morstan wouldn’t welcome me in any case. I know too much about her.”

“Does John know?”

“I doubt it. She’s sincere in her desire to leave the Game. I doubt she’ll tell unless she has to. It’s a new life—she’ll want to keep it that way. Will you be at the do?”

“Pretty much have to,” he said, then continued, “Are you sure you won’t come? I could use the company. Sometimes I get tired of it—all the masks. We could go together—brother and friend of the best man. No one would think twice, with Sherlock tying us together.”

“No.” He looked away. “I find weddings melancholy. Better not. You’ll find it easier to look for a partner without me in any case. That’s what receptions are for, isn’t it?” He smirked tightly. “The meet and greet, all to ensure that within a year there will be another wedding? That’s what people do, isn’t it? They get married.”

He could still pass on her kiss, Lestrade thought, uneasy, angry, trapped. He didn’t want to know any more what he knew now too well: that Mycroft was alone, and felt the solitude. That he had something Mycroft needed…

That Mycroft had something he wanted.

“It’s what people like” he said, and left in a dark and brooding mood that lasted through the wedding and the reception and carried him on for weeks after, when Mycroft called him in a panic because Sherlock was using again—and was taking aim at Magnussen.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All right, it's going to be more like five or six chapters total. Sue me. Some stories take time to tell. (grin)

Later the same day.

 

Lestrade remembered that day much like a film montage, in scraps and patches and vivid little images that burned his mind and heart for years after.

“He’s using. He’s bloody using.”

Mycroft’s voice was shaking, as Lestrade held the phone to his ear while he stood over a murder site. He’d just been wishing Sherlock and John were handy.

“Bloody hell,” he said, not sure which of a dozen reasons motivated the curse. Probably all of them: compassion for Mycroft, fear and anger for Sherlock, frustration for himself.

“Sal, I’ve got to take this,” he said, projecting over the sound of traffic on the nearby cross-street. “Cover for me?”

“Oh? Who is it? Date? Doctor? Dentist?”

“Secret Service, actually,” Lestrade said. “Apparently something to do with a case I picked up years back. You got this for now?”

“Yeah, sure , gov. I’m on point. You go do what you’ve gotta do. So long as it’s not the Freak, it’s fine with me.”

Lestrade nodded, taking one last look down at the victim. “Hang on, Mike. Just pulled a murder. Gimme just a second to look at the site before Sal and the rest of the team start. Can you wait just that long? I’m here, I promise.”

 The woman lay in a skip, limp and bled-out. She was white-blond, petite, probably about five-four, fine bones. Lestrade, looking down, estimated her age at about forty—but was hard put to be sure. She was dressed in black—slim, black trousers, black trainers, a black jumper. A neat little black beret lay on the floor of the skip amongst the coffee grounds, slime, and tatters of newspaper.

“Get photos,” he said to Donovan. “Lots of photos. I hate not being here while you look.”

“Happy Harry can do video, if you want.”

“Yeah—get him on it. Ok—back in a bit.” He walked down to the end of the alley and out onto the walkway, then leaned against the oxblood-red bricks of the terraced house at the corner. “Ok, Mike. I’m here. How do you know?”

“Bloody saw him,” Mycroft growled. “Bloody got my arm twisted behind my back, too. Flying—and mean as…as…” His voice stuttered out, wearily. He took a breath, and said, “Remember that time we found him in Bath?”

“Yeah. I remember.”

Sherlock wasn’t reliably nice when he was using. Oh, he might sleep on heroin, or mumble on when drinking--but trip the right triggers and as often as not he was a fist-swinging, insult-spewing bastard. The only inebriant Lestrade had seen him on that never seemed to have that effect was pot—and Lestrade couldn’t even swear to that, as he didn’t think he’d ever seen Sherlock on pot for more than an hour or so before the hell-born lad switched to something else less fortunate.*

“Did he hurt you?”

Mycroft’s breath shifted, as though he were forcibly calming himself. “No. No—not really. My shoulder and  wrist aren’t going to be happy with me for a few days, but he stopped short of doing more than bruise and strain a few things.”

“You’re lucky he didn’t break your wrist. Or your thumb. Or dislocate your shoulder.” Lestrade sometimes wished he could take the lad out into an alley like the one behind him and beat some sense into him.

No. He didn’t really. But--  “Mike, you could have fought back. You do know how.”

“Too much chance it would escalate,” Mycroft said, voice grim and taught. “And John was there. He still doesn’t really understand what I do, and I want to keep it that way.”

“You could tell him. Sherlock knows. Mary knows. Someday he’s going to understand.”

“He’s practically been given sworn testimony,” Mycroft snapped. “He rationalizes it to look how he wants it to look. In any case, wrapping Sherlock’s arms around his neck and tying them in a bow wouldn’t help—he’d just have one more reason to stay on the sauce.”

“Sorry, sorry. I know you’re right. Hell, Sherlock and I as good as telegraphed it at Baskerville and it shot right over his head. It’s just…it complicates things, you know. What was that about Magnussen?”

Mycroft swore—a soft, vitriolic string of curses that weren’t inventive, or kind, or generous, many of which would have been flagged by the Politically Correct as demonstrating gender bias. At last he slowed, and said, “Someone _‘hired’_ my brother. I can’t prove it and dare not challenge her on it, but I’m almost sure it’s Lady Smallwood. The last the Duck heard, CAM had found out about her husband’s Lolita issues.”

“I remember that,” Lestrade muttered. “Hell. Yeah, I always figured she suckered him—but what kind of idiot likes ‘em young enough for that to be an issue, for the love of God? Fifteen. I mean—fifteen? And he was…what? Mid-thirties? What kind of moron makes that kind of mistake?”

“She did look mature for her age,” Mycroft pointed out. “Well…developed. And she turned herself out well.”

“Ever tried talking to a fifteen-year-old, Mike?” Lestrade growled. “Even a smart one?”

“I’m the wrong person to ask in so very many ways,” Mycroft said.

“Gov,” Sally called as she came down the alley, “Can you take a sec?”

“Hang on, Mike. Yeah, Sal?”

“Got a name, got ID. Polish citizen—Rosyscka Gorka. Forty-three, resident of Warsaw, traveling on a diplomatic visa. Killed execution-style: small-calibre bullet through the right temple, a second in the heart.”

“Wait—wait!” Mycroft’s voice was sharp and precise, suddenly. “Give me that name again, Lestrade.”

Lestrade looked at his DS. “Seems like the name is known. Do you mind talking to a spook?”

“No,” Mycroft hissed.

“Shut up, Mike—this is easier. It’s not like I’m publishing your photo, you silly tosser. Sal—give the info and then hand back. Mike, turn on your recording system if it’s not on already, yeah?” He handed the mobile phone to Sally, who proceeded to provide a full information dump while giving her boss the hairy eyeball.

“Yes, sir. Yes. Blonde. Yes.” She flipped through the passport she held in her hand. “Yes—that would be the case. Came in at Heathrow yesterday, yes. Found dead in a skip in an alley near the Embankment. No—no time of death, yet, but I’ve been doing this awhile. I’m guessing sometime last night. What? No—talk to the gov. That’s outside my paygrade. Yeah, I’ll give you back to ‘im.” She handed the phone back, palm covering the pick-up. “Wants it buried, gov. Says it’s national security.”

“If he says it’s national security, it’s national security. Start securing it for the SS folks to come take over,” he said. “Stay on site until they relieve you.” He got back on the phone as she hurried back down the alley, her cloud of ringlets bouncing with her stride. “I’ve got her taking care of it, Mike. What stirs?”

“She was the Duck’s Warsaw contact, and acted as her go-between to Magnussen sometimes. She was one of ours.”

Just thinking about it made Lestrade’s head hurt. “All right. All right. So—what do you want me to do first? Come see you? Handle this and make sure my people don’t leak anything? Go talk to that berk Sherlock?”

He could almost hear Mycroft’s brains simmer. After a moment the other man said, “I’m going to be too busy to attend to Sherlock and Magnussen for the next few days, I suspect. This has a bad, bad smell to it. I need to contact the Duck and find out what’s happening on her end, and try to determine whether she was sending Goldilocks to contact me, or Magnussen, or both. To make it all worse, she’s in the middle of a project in Warsaw right now and I can’t put her at risk. So—keep an eye on your team, learn what you can, make sure nothing leaks. If I get news I’ll call.”

Lestrade grunted agreement. “If there’s anything I can do, you’ll let me know?”

“If I don’t, Anthea will.” He paused, and then said, “Lestrade? I may need you to serve as my proxy again. The way you did when we first started. If Sherlock’s back on the sauce and I’m in the middle of a major balls-up—Greg, I may not be able to attend to Sherlock even if he’ll have me. I… Can you? I’m sorry, but—“

“No worries, mate,” Lestrade said, already thinking through the logistics. “Yeah. I need you to do your part, too. Get Andy-pants to clear this case with my supervisor, yeah? Make sure he knows it’s you guys horning in, not my fault, and be sure you grind your heel in his face, because he’s a bullheaded arse-hole and he’s not going to like the spooks stepping in. You can do that?”

“Yes.” Mycroft was already shifting to his work mode—pure business, pure focus. “And?”

“Get her to cut me time as your liaison. Use the case as cover. Then get her to go to MI5 and handle them, too. They may need to be in the loop, yeah?”

“Done. Any more?”

He paused, reviewing. “I’ll let you know. But for now? Keep me in the loop, you tosser. Even if you need to get Andy-girl to run it for you—don’t let me fall out of the loop. And…”

“What?”

He took a breath, and said, softly, “Take care of yourself, Mike? I know you. You’re going to go deep. I’m not going to try to stop you: I know it’s how you work, especially when the brat manages to dump you in the thick of it. I know you’ve got to go all Holmes-tunnel-vision just to handle it. But don’t you fuckin’ dare go so deep you don’t take care of yourself, you understand?”

There was a long, stunned silence. Then—

“Excuse me?”

“No, I mean it, Mike. You got no one but Andy and me worrying about you, and Andy’s going to be up to her arse in alligators and you’re going to have me running all over Lun’on dealing with Sherlock and Magnussen and spies. That leaves you to look out for you—and if you don’t take care of yourself I swear I’m going to take Andy out for a night at the pub as we are going to _plan._ You hear me? We are so going to plan.”

“Plan what?” Mycroft’s voice was suddenly bright, and Lestrade knew he’d raised a smile even in the midst of an ongoing catastrophe.

“You know what. Doom, Holmes. We are going to plan Doom. We will be in your base, messin’ with your karma. Right? Now, promise.”

“Only if you promise not to send me any kitten macros with _Starcraft_ Gameboy memes,” Mycroft said.

“Spoilsport,” Lestrade said, then smiled. “Yeah. Okay. Laters, blud.”

Mycroft’s smile shone down the line. “Laters,” he said, and hung up.

Lestrade smiled. They might just make it without things getting any worse, he thought.

Of course, it was only a few hours before he found out how wrong he was.

 

“He’s shot.”

“What?”

“Sherlock. He’s shot. I can’t leave.” Mycroft’s voice was ragged and torn. “I can’t leave here, Greg. The problem in Warsaw’s cascading, Nesbit’s apparently suggested to Lady Smallwood that I’m behind Rozyscka’s shooting, the investigation team has found not just one, but two people who may have been casing Magnussen’s office, and Sherlock was shot there a half-hour ago. John says he may…he may be dying.”

Mycroft wasn’t crying. Lestrade could hear he wasn’t crying. He could also hear that he should damned well have been. “Get Andy to take over and I’ll meet you at the hospital.”

“No. I can’t be spared and neither can you. I need you to contact Balki. He and MI5’s team are doing the investigation on Rosie’s death. Tell them you need to see the surveillance footage on Magnussen’s office exterior for the past week.”

“You want me to get tonight’s, too?”

“No point. Tonight the cameras were destroyed.”

“Not just broken?”

“Shattered.”

“Ok. Ok—let me know how Sherlock is doing. Please?”

“Not me. Call John. Tell him I called you. I’m sorry, Lestrade. I’m sorry. I’m just… I can’t…”

“Understood. Later.”

He did understand. Mycroft handled information on levels beyond any he could even imagine—but even he could overload, and too many demands could rattle him. If he was dealing with an emergency he couldn’t also cope with the A&E waiting room worrying about Sherlock and drinking bad coffee, and with the investigation in to Rozyscka Gorka’s death, and at the same time deal with an attack on his career by Nesbit.

He slammed the office door, and proceeded to kick it. Again. Again. Again. He’d done it before: it was as safe a way as any to vent, and it let him deal with stress and temper safely—even amusingly, to judge by Sally’s versions of his tantrums told over a pint on Team Nights at the pub. But tonight it didn’t really help. He got on the phone, and began making calls.

 

“He’s alive.” John sounded tired, but relieved. “He…he almost didn’t. But he came through. Now we just have to hope to hell he gets through recovering without anything more going wrong.”

“Like what?”

Lestrade could hear an implied shrug. “Anything. Nothing. He’s got a whopping big abdominal wound. The surgeon enlarged it to find the artery and close it off. His heart stopped—but he’s an addict and he’s been using. Sedation's a gamble. They’re hooking him up to a morphine pump. It’s the right choice, but…”

“But it means Sherlock Holmes is going to spend his recovery hooked up to his drug of choice. Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“You told Mycroft?”

“Anthea,” John said, bristling resentment clear in every tone. “Greg, what kind of man—“

“He’s a busy man,” Lestrade said. He wished he could say more, but John still seemed to miss the obvious—that he worked with Mycroft. That being the case, it was probably best to continue playing the part of Sherlock’s friend who barely knew Big Brother. He could still be the voice of sweet reason. “He really does seem to be fairly important. For all we know he’s in the middle of stopping World War III.”

“It’s his brother.”

“Yeah. Look, I can come over tonight, if you like.”

“No.” John was weary. “No—no point. He’s going to be out for ages. Wait—look, Greg, I have to get off. Mary just reached the hospital. Yeah—I see her coming in now. Later?”

“Yeah. I’ll be by as soon as I can, yeah?”

But by then John had already hung up.

 

It was late when he finally got to MI6 headquarters and went up the lift to Mycroft’s office, high above the Thames. Anthea was camped at her desk outside.

“How’s it hanging, Panda-love?”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s in there. He’s mainlining data so fast the DSL link can’t keep up. I’ve managed to slow Nesbit down.”

“How?”

“The boss had himself put on Level Red surveillance last summer after the polonium-210 incident. It didn’t take that much to establish he hasn’t been in direct touch with Rosie ever…and he documented every contact he had with the Duckling. We made Lady S and Bannister over in the Home Office sign their souls away if they ever breathed so much as a word, and then I proceeded to provide documentation and sworn witness to every hour of the past year and more, not to mention every mobile call, every email, every instant message. If he twittered I’d have been able to provide every single tweet.”

“Good on you. Good on both of you. Hell, good on the whole damned team. Can I go in?”

She considered, then said, “Yeah. He may not talk to you—he’s that busy. But—I think it would help him to actually see you. Just—someone. Besides digital streams and enemies.”

Lestrade nodded, and let her buzz him into the office.

It was darker than ever, the lights down low. Mycroft, neat and upright and focused behind his desk, was bathed in the radiance of his laptop. He looked up, and for one moment there was too much on his face. Then he went still.

“Thank you for your efforts,” he said, attention already drifting to the screen again.

“Glad to.” Lestrade looked at that pert goblin face, that laser focused attention, and smiled. “How you holding up?”

“I…” Mycroft stopped, frowned, and hit a few keys. The frown left. “I’m fine. Busy.”

“Yeah, I figured. John says the kid’s likely to hang on at least a bit longer, yeah?”

A smile flickered. Mycroft nodded. “Yes. He sounded guardedly optimistic.”

“Yeah.” Lestrade came around the desk and stood behind Mycroft’s desk.

“You’re really not cleared to see this,” Mycroft grumbled, but didn’t turn the screen away or force Lestrade to leave.

“Yeah, well. I can’t read fast enough for it to matter anyway,” Lestrade said, and put his hands on Mycroft’s shoulders, kneading lightly. “Just glad to see you’re still hanging on.”

Mycroft paused. Even his hands fell still. Lestrade could feel him weighing the hands on his shoulders. At last the younger man simply sighed, and leaned lightly into the pressure, fingers already flying again. “I’m managing,” he said.

They stayed like that for an hour, before Lestrade said he had to leave, stroked the back of Mycroft’s neck, and went home.

 

 

*I am not trying to be cruel about Sherlock. I do think we’ve got good reason at this point to be concerned that he’s got a serious mean-drunk/stoned streak. Not all the time—but often enough to be memorable and characteristic.

We’ve got reason to think he’s been drinking fairly seriously after he sees the Hound at Baskerville, where he’s down right horrible. (Yes, he’s also been exposed to the H.O.U.N.D.S. gas, but that if anything is just one more inebriant on which he’s piled scotch. And, yes, he’s been emotionally shaken—but that’s a stimulus, not an explanation for the way Sherlock deals with that stimulus. So I am counting this one as evidence, if not proof.) The second time we see him soused—really, simply, normally soused—is at John’s stag-do, where he’s ready to go mano-a-mano over ash and his expertise in said-same. Third time is Mycroft pinned to the wall. A possible fourth is the Christmas party itself—though that’s also to some degree just Sherlock being Sherlock.

Which is the other point I want to make: Sherlock can be an aggressive little pillock anyway, when he thinks he’s right, or when he feels under attack, or when he’s in “thinking” mode. Knowing he can be that bad when normal, and knowing he can be even more caustic and even physically aggressive when drunk, I think it’s fair to speculate that those who deal with him when he IS in that state will remember it, dread it, and perhaps give it more precedence than it technically warrants. He may not be a mean drunk all the time—but when he is, no one ever forgets it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I think there is one more section--maybe two. I'm trying to get this through the end of His Last Vow, as the dynamics want to go this way. This section is looong, and it interweaves more of the original script than I usually use, as Lestrade's actually active in this portion of the episode--and I needed to run it from his POV, instead of from John's. 
> 
> Hope you continue to like. The boys are making slooooow progress. But, then, I don't see them as being likely to be hasty about this.

“Who shot him?”

“What?” Mycroft’s voice over the phone was distracted. “Sorry, what?”

“Sherlock—who shot Sherlock? I’ve got the Met crawling up my arse on that one. ‘Famous Hat Man Shot,’ and that Irish girl making out like a bandit with the tabloids and the talk shows, and we don’t have a clue who shot ‘our boy.’ Who shot Sherlock?”

“I don’t know,” Mycroft said. “It couldn't have been Rozyscka, though it's likely she was one of the people surveiling Magnussen's office. It could have been one of Nesbit’s people, though. Or for that matter, Magnussen himself may have shot him. Or had him shot.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Truly, I don’t know,” Mycroft said. “Magnussen claims he didn’t see the gunman’s face.”

“And do you believe that?”

“Not for a minute. But…”

“Mmmm?”

“He’s not telling. Sherlock’s not telling. It looks like the two may have reached a stand-off. Pray God. I’ve got too much else to deal with.”

“No. You don’t. It’s all one case, Mike—Roza-whatsis, the mysterious second assassin-in-black, the broken cameras, Sherlock, Magnussen, Nesbit, the Darlin’ Duck. It’s all one big, messy tangle of different stuff that’s got all muddled…but it’s all one case. You can take care of your end—Ducky-Dearie, espionage, the late, great Rose of Warsaw. I can try to find out who shot Sherlock.”

“Are you volunteering?” Mycroft’s voice was sardonic, conveying the idea that those who volunteered deserved what they got…but under the dark, ironic gloom was a trace of gratitude and relief.

“Let’s just say I’m going to be trying to find out anyway, so we might as well make it official. Work for you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m going to start with a direct frontal attack: go see him at hospital, now he can have guests. I’ll take some pictures, yeah? Send ‘em to you as proof he’s still alive and annoying as ever.”

“Thank you,” Mycroft said. “I’d like that.”

Which Lestrade had known he would. The man was running on cat naps and strong tea, and hadn’t managed to leave his office in days. There was really no question he’d be at the point of wanting something he could see—something real to assure him his crazy, brilliant brother was still with him.

He flipped open his phone, and dialed again. “Hello, John? Yeah. Look, is Sherlock fit for a visitor later today? Yeah—around six. Yeah, great. Meet you there….”

 

On the wind. Sherlock Holmes was on the wind, flying solo…

Probably literally flying, Lestrade though, grimly. The room was over three standard storeys up.* The bastard had climbed out.

At least there was no corpse on the pavement below. He didn’t think any of them could have borne that.

He and John did a quick survey of the hospital security footage to determine Sherlock hadn’t left the room by more normal routes. All the nurses and orderlies and janitorial staff were present and accounted for. No long, lanky man in surgical scrubs, mask, and cap had tottered dysfunctionally through the place.

“No. He’s gone.” John was scared.

That worried Lestrade more than Sherlock being missing. “Bugger. And I was thinking it might be a promising sign: Sherlock Holmes up on his feet and making trouble. How bad is this?”

“How bad? You can seriously ask?” John was moving fast down the stairs into the lobby, feet drumming. “He’s just had major reparatory surgery, for God’s sake…and he’s had no time to heal. Internal bleeding’s just the start of what can be wrong.”

Lestrade knew enough to start building outcomes from that information. He didn’t like what he was coming up with. “So if he’s not at Baker Street or anywhere obvious—if he goes to ground in one of his flops—and he’s bleeding, he could die in his sleep and….

“Yes.”

They had to work out his hidey-holes. They had to work out Sherlock Bloody “London is my Mistress” Holmes’ hidey-holes.

“He’s got three known bolt-holes—Parliament Hill, Camden Lock, and Dagmar Court,” he said, on the phone to Mycroft even as he and John stormed out of the hospital and onto the streets.

“No, there are more,” Mycroft replied. “Come in—Let John and Mary do the preliminary work and get over here.”

“Will do.” He turned to John. “You and Mary—talk to people. You know who—find out what other people know. I’ve got to talk to Myrcoft.”

John nodded. “Good. Good—you can get MI6 resources on this.”

“Probably not,” he said, and hailed a cab.

 

Mycroft’s office was still dim—still dark. Mycroft’s eyes were glued to the screen. “It’s all happening at once,” he said, still and focused. “Sherlock. Magnussen. Rozyscka. Now—the Duck’s been called to a rendezvous. She’s carrying information on arms movement through the international black market. We’ve put a trace on her, and she’s wired…but she’s been diverted from the original site and she’s flying without backup.”

“Now?”

“Yes.” He risked a brief glance up at Lestrade. “You’ll have to deal with Sherlock.”

Lestrade nodded, heavily. “Three bolt holes. You say there are more?”

“I know two more. Five known bolt-holes. There’s the blind greenhouse in Kew Gardens and the leaning tomb in Hampstead Cemetary.” The light of the screen shifted; Mycroft’s attention was fixed. One hand came up, gesturing Lestrade to be on his way.

He didn’t even say goodbye.

“What have you found out?” Lestrade said, phoning John as he climbed into another cab.

“Mrs. Hudson says he’s got a place behind the Big Ben clock face—if you can believe it,” John said, sounding like he didn’t. “Seems off to me, but if you can get someone to check it?”

“Save it for last,” Lestrade said. “Anything else?”

“He’s been staying with Molly, sometimes,” John said. “Conned her out of her own bedroom, too, when he’s there, the cocky bastard. Didn’t sound like poor Molly even got to be ‘friends with benefits’ in return for the favor, either. But he’s not there. She checked. Haven’t heard from Mary, yet. She was going to contact Anderson, I think.”

“Ok. I’m going to Baker Street. Maybe he’s there. Maybe he’s been there. May be a clue, in any case. You coming along, or contacting someone else?”

“Coming along,” John said. “Meet you there.”

 

Sherlock wasn’t there. John, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson ransacked the flat, even checking up in John’s old room above and down in the basement flat below. There was no sign of him. They ended up back in the sitting room.

“He knew who shot him,” John said—frustrated. Brooding. He gestured to his abdomen. “The bullet wound was here, so he was facing whoever it was.”

Lestrade hadn’t know that. He felt irritation and embarrassment flare: he was supposed to be covering things for Mike. Serving as his proxy. He wouldn’t have failed to find out the details of Sherlock’s injury. But—it didn’t make sense.

“So why not tell us?” Then it occurred to him, and the panic skittered across his nerves. “Because he’s tracking them down himself.”

“Or protecting them.”

“Protecting the shooter? Why?”

“Well, protecting someone, then. But why would he care? He’s Sherlock. Who would he bother protecting?”** John dropped heavily into his old chair.

Lestrade’s mind was spinning, trying to sort through all the layers of complexity.

Injured, drugged, reckless Sherlock was trying to hunt his assailant—and he was walking right into the chaos Mycroft and his people were trying to wrestle into control. Eastern European agents, KGB contacts, the Duckling walking into a forced rendezvous in a location over which she—and Mycroft—had no control. Rozyscka Gorka dead in a skip—and the Polish woman and a black-clad look-alike both staking out Magnussen’s office. And through it all, Magnussen, ugly and vile, hunting Mycroft.

And what if Sherlock was trying to protect his attacker? What if he had the wrong lead, was making the wrong assumptions? He’d attacked Mycroft only the day before. He’d ignored Mycroft’s warn-off. He’d played against his brother before—hiding the Duck’s survival after her apparent death, savoring it to himself, playing knight errant defending the “helpless not-maiden” from Mycroft and the Americans. What if he’d got wind of the Duck’s connection with Mycroft and Magnussen and failed to realize the two men were not allies, but antagonists—and that Irene Adler was not helpless, but a knight with her own skills and valor in the field of combat?

God. It made his head hurt.

Sherlock—mad, bad Sherlock—was walking into that unprepared, not knowing how many layers he faced. Refusing to consider that Mycroft’s warn-off had been absolutely necessary—and absolutely none of Sherlock’s business.

“Call me if you hear anything. Don’t hold out on me, John.”

He tried to put all his authority, all the debts John and Sherlock owed him, into that demand. John, though, barely noticed.

He tried again. “ _Call_ me, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, right.”

Lestrade’s heart sank. John was Sherlock’s man—not his. He’d call if he thought it was in Sherlock’s best interests. He wouldn’t, otherwise. Lingering, wishing he could push just a little longer, he paused, then said, reluctantly, “Good night, then.”

When John failed to answer, he turned and left, followed only by Mrs. Hudson’s airy, uncertain, “Bye” floating down the stairwell behind him.

He scoured the streets, looking for Sherlock’s network people. He asked his own contacts, including a precious few he’d kept back from the Met, MI5, and MI6—all three. A smart spy needed a few hidden assets. He got nowhere. Then his phone rang. He frowned, seeing the ID.

“Yeah, Anderson? What is it? Better be short, because I’m busy right now.”

“I thought you might be,” his former forensics analyst said. “Sherlock still missing?”

“The last I heard.”

“I thought of one more place besides Leinster Gardens,” he said. “There’s a place down in the Tube—one of the blind stations. The one near the old Bull and Bush…”

“Wait—what? When did you pass on Leinster Gardens?”

“Couple hours ago,” he said, sounding bewildered. Well—Anderson, after all. He was usually either bewildered or so dead-sure you wanted him to be bewildered again. “Didn’t you talk to Mary?”

“Mary?”

“John’s wife?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. John’s wife,” Lestrade said, feeling the dominos fall. “Look, I got to go. Thanks. Call John. No—no. For God’s sake, don’t call John. Never call John. Me. Call me if you learn anything else.” He hung up without even waiting for confirmation, and instantly hit Mycroft’s number in speed-dial. “It’s Mary. The mystery shooter—it’s Mary. She shot Sherlock.”

“I know,’ Mycroft said, wearily. “I just got word. Sherlock’s in hospital again. Internal bleeding. He…John’s not at all sure he’ll make it.”

The world seemed to collapse on Lestrade’s head. The weight…the pressure. He could barely breathe. “She shot him again?”

“No….” Mycroft sounded stunned, then appalled. “No. Good God, no.” He stopped, and in a voice of near amazement, said, “Baby Brother’s been attempting relationship counselling. Apparently he intends to save John and Mary’s marriage.”

“But—she shot him!”

“Yes,” Mycroft said, pensively. “So it would seem.”

Lestrade wanted to ask if Mycroft wasn’t going to have Mary “dealt with,” but it took only a few sonds to realize that was unlikely. Instead of asking, he said, “I’m coming in.”

“No. There’s no need.”

“Don’t argue, Holmes. I’m coming in. I need…I want…I don’t know what I need or want. But if you’re trapped there, I’m coming in. You can bring me up to date during your loo runs, for all I care, but you’re bringing me up to date.”

Mycroft sighed. “All right, all right. If you insist, though I was hoping to go home and sleep, if you must know. I believe we’re through the crisis here. But—I suppose I can stay another hour or so to catch you up.”

He felt guilty and hesitated, then said,  “Oh. No. I thought you were still stuck. I can…It can wait.” But Mycroft had already hung up.

 

“How’s tricks, Andy-pants?”

She smiled—a weary, colorless smile. “Turnin’, Gregster. Turnin’. The white hats won today, anyway.”

“Duckling made it out alive?”

“Better. Has a new contact high up in the KGB—and she was assigned Nesbit as her contact here. We’ve hit escape velocity—nowhere left to go but up.” He smile was genuine, if too worn out to shine with its usual luminosity. “Go on in. The boss is closing up for the night. I sent in take-out and a big thermos flask of tea. Enough to share.”

Lestrade stepped warily into the dim office. “Hey, Mike.”

Mycroft looked up over a desk filled with take-away cartons, a pair of chopsticks poised delicately in his hand. “Welcome, Inspector. Please, help yourself. Our Anthea has seen to my needs generously.”

“She get any of that country-style eggplant?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Point me at it.”

Mycroft wafted his hand with almost the same languid grace he’d demonstrated earlier when shooing Lestrade from his office. “I believe over there, in one of the cardboard containers. And there are utensils, too.”

Lestrade grabbed a paper-sheathed pair of pine chopsticks, checked the carton, and then sat heavily. “How much do you like eggplant?”

“Quite a bit—but not so much I won’t happily cede it to you tonight. Anthea arranged far more choices than I need…though I’m as glad she did. She just ordered all my favorites rather than make me choose.” He smiled. “Leftovers go in the office refrigerator and she often reheats them for our lunch the next day.”

Lestrade nodded, and proceeded to dive into the spicy-sweet eggplant as though it were life and breath itself. Only when he was scraping the last tendril-y, greasy scraps of goodness around the corners of the container did he say, “When did you figure out it was Mary?”

Mycroft sighed heavily. “I suspected she might be involved in some way from the time we realized there were two assassins exploring Magnussen’s offices. There are not so very many highly skilled assassins of their size. Some. Still, comparatively few. And Rosie and Mrs. Watson had doubled for each other on occasion, in days past. They are easily confused.I just didn't--until I realized it wasn't intended, it made too little sense. I wasn't sure until tonight.”

“So…”

“Nesbit realized someone was trying to kill Magnussen—an event he could not afford. Magnussen is one of his resources. He is, however, also his most dangerous enemy…an enemy he could not afford to let die without having first secured his secrets.”

“Magnussen’s blackmailing him?”

“Magnussen is blackmailing virtually every major figure in Europe,” Mycroft said, adding, “And quite a few minor ones, too. The network of people tied together in mutual dysfunction and codependency is even larger than Moriarty’s old criminal network—and in a peculiar way is not that different in function.” He opened a fortune cookie, cracked the cookie, read the note, and smiled. He handed it across the table to Lestrade. “Singularly apropos, in my opinion.”

_Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing._

Lestrade laughed. “Yeah, that one’s true enough.” He cracked his own. _Now is the time to try something new._ He looked across and considered Mycroft.

No, he thought. It wasn’t—not the time at all. He rolled the fortune into a tight little scroll and set it on the desk with the crumpled wrapper from the chopsticks. “And Mary? She shot your brother, Mike.”

“She saved my brother, I suspect,” Mycroft said.

“She was after Magnussen.”

“Yes. Sherlock blundered in.”

“Did you know?”

Mycroft sighed and shook his head. “I’m ashamed to say I did not. I knew her background, of course. That’s why I assigned her to surveil John Watson during Sherlock’s absence. She was a skilled agent for the Americans, and left them for good reason. She’d done some work for me, and it seemed a good choice—she wanted to leave the Game, he offered the perfect assignment, providing her with a door into a civilian life she yearned for. I am afraid I didn’t realize Magnussen had learned about her. Nor did I realize she’d been planning on his removal for years. If I had I’ve have had words with her.”

“About planning to kill Magnussen. But not about shooting Sherlock.”

“If she’d wanted him dead, he’d be dead,” Mycroft said. “Instead he saved her marriage, in spite of his own territorial jealousy of John Watson.” He gave the tight, false little smile he often offered when hiding behind his professional persona. “I think he sees himself in her.”

They were both silent. Lestrade weighed the idea. Sherlock—brilliant, beloved, out of control, juvenile, heroic, epic, idiotic, reckless Sherlock—and the cooler, calmer Mary.

“You’d have stopped her from trying, wouldn’t you?”

Mycroft looked down at his own hands. “He has…uses.”

“He’s a monster—and he plans to destroy you.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not bringing Nesbit in, either.”

“Just when he’s been handed to us as a complete dupe? The Duckling will serve him up to us on a platter with orange sauce and brandy flambe. Of course I won’t.”

“He’s out to destroy you, too.”

“Yes.”

“Mike….” Lestrade shook his head, then, giving up. “I think she’s more like you,” he said at last. “Planning it out, taking the risk herself, not asking for help. You’d even shoot Sherlock if you thought the alternatives were even worse.”

“’Course I would,” Mycroft said, with a merry but mournful smirk. “And if you ask him, I’ll shoot him even if the alternatives aren’t worse.”

“He’s wrong.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a damned hard man to protect, Mycroft Holmes.”

Mycroft’s eyes flared wide. “Protect? Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve got more bodyguards and spies protecting me than Her Majesty herself.”

“And more enemies.”

“It suggests I’m doing my job right,” Mycroft said.

“The Duck told me to tell you to watch out for Magnussen. He’ll lie, if he has to.”

“No. He likes the game too well. It’s not enough to win—he has to win using our own weaknesses against us. Lady Smallwood’s love for her idiotic husband. Mary Morstan’s grief over her own past and her desire to protect her husband and her marriage. Sherlock’s desire to protect John.”

“And you with no weaknesses. The Iceman.”

Mycroft’s eyes were hooded. He picked up the chopsticks and rolled them between his fingers. “You know better.”

“Sherlock.”

“Among others.” He sighed. “Many others—those personal to me, and those inherent in my public role. I am completely vulnerable. I bleed at the fall of sparrows. The nation births a new hostage to fortune for me every forty seconds, I am told.”***

And that was why Lestrade loved him. The thought blossomed—and faded even as it bloomed. It was also why he could do nothing about it. How could he add even one more close hostage to fortune to a man who was already held hostage by love of an entire nation?

He sighed. “Yeah. Ok. But you’re not alone keeping an eye on the snakes and sharks,” he said.

“Dragons,” Mycroft said. “Dragons to be crushed under one’s heel.” He rose. “It’s late.”

Lestrade stood, too. “Yeah. Do you need me to go over to see Sherlock in the morning?”

Mycroft shook his head. “No.” He walked Lestrade to the door of his office—and paused. “Thank you.”

The words were simple. Mycroft seldom waxed poetic, after all—but, then, neither did Lestrade.

“Yeah. Same.” The impulse to pull the man close and hug him, just as he hugged Sherlock, came and passed. Instead he clapped his hand over the other man’s shoulder—firm, not quite annoyingly hearty, and sincere. “You’re a good man, Mycroft Holmes.”

“So are you,” Mycroft said—and, then, to both their eternal surprise, he reached up and traced the line of Lestrade’s cheekbone, his eyes following the motion of his own fingertip. When he reached the end, he let his finger slip down, down, to the jaw, the neck, until his hand, too, rested on his friend’s. “A good man.” His voice was soft and melancholy.

“I thought you didn’t do that,” Lestrade said, voice barely making it past sudden arousal.

“I don’t.” It was the merest whisper.

Lestrade closed his eyes, and fought for breath. At last he said. “When you do? Call me.” He opened his eyes, and saw longing and fear and uncertainty in Mycroft’s. “Call.”

Mycroft tried to veil—tried to mask. He failed. After a moment he nodded, once, a quick, tense jerk of the chin—down, up. “I will.”

Lestrade couldn’t drop his hand, couldn’t step away, couldn’t move his eyes from Mycroft’s. Then he couldn’t bear it any longer. He surged forward, gripped the taller man tight in a bear hug, buried his face growling softly—then pulled back enough to settle his lips over Mycroft’s and seek entrance, find entrance as Mycroft gasped, and then kiss him as though their lives depended on the depth and sweetness of it.

When he concluded they bounced away from each other like oppositely charged particles….and said nothing. They merely stared.

Lestrade finally turned away, unable to hold the intensity without screaming or lunging again or running away in panic.

Even as he did, Mycroft whispered, “It’s all right. It’s… It’s all right.”

Lestrade nodded, not looking back, his hand shooting out for the doorknob. “Yeah. He paused, then blurted out, “If you want more—there’s more where that came from.”

Then the door was open and he was pacing through the outer office, barely flashing a hand in an abbreviated wave to Anthea.

He took a cab home, forgot to tip the driver, and didn’t manage to get to sleep until pre-dawn. He drifted off to the raucous lullaby of nesting starlings in the eaves of his building.

 

 

 

 

*I am not sure how high up Sherlock’s room is. I know that it’s at least one corkscrew-twist stairway up from the ground floor level, with the lobby and stairway on the “grand scale” with high-high ceilings. I’m actually thinking going by edits that Sherlock may be still one more twist up, but a more standard ceiling height: still high, but not monumental. Given the scale and comparing it to standard housing I’m thinking that Lestrade, looking out the window, would guestimate three storeys.

That said, I could be dead wrong. But at some point poor pitiful fic writers have to let go of canon and guess to fill in the gaps.

**Others have pointed out before me that the scene is gorgeous in part because all three people we have already been shown Sherlock will protect are present in Baker Street for this scene: John and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade. During the critical period of Sherlock’s research on Mary, he’s trying to protect them from her—but also her from them. Until he’s reached a conclusion he won’t act. Once he has, he sets up Leinster Gardens, structuring it specifically so that John will witness that Mary is not hoping to kill Sherlock, but to negotiate with him.

I do think it’s important that Sherlock ensures that Mary mistakes John for himself. He needs John to know—to REALLY know—that Sherlock is certain Mary does not intend to shoot him, even if she is armed, even if she tries to use bluster to cow Sherlock into cooperating. If John had been the “hidden” player, he would not have been in a position to look into Mary’s face, watch Mary’s movements, see how easy it would have been for her to shoot Sherlock and leave. Instead Sherlock demonstrates, one step at a time, how skilled Mary is, how powerful her hand, how easily she could kill the man who threatens her…and he proves just as clearly that he never believed she would, even after the shooting in Magnussen’s office. As callous as he can be, he would never place John in that kind of risk, and John knows it—John knows Sherlock will risk his life rather than let John be killed.

*** British Birthrate is 1 baby per 40 seconds, according to the Express, as of 2011. Unlike Mycroft I do not feel driven to get the updated figures.  http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/260925/One-baby-born-every-40-seconds-in-Britain


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pretty sure this is the next to last, with the final one likely to be short unless I get graphic. Haven't quite decided. It may have to decide itself for me.
> 
> Happy Thanksgiving, all y'all.

“You’ve got a problem, Greg?”

Lestrade looked at his MI5 supervisor. “I may. It’s confidential, though. I think I need some help.”

She raised one brow. She was short and dark with a voice that still carried the song of Jamaica. She was four years his junior. She was a better shot on the range and a better spy on the street. He never knew whether he resented her like fire or admired her almost as much as he admired Mycroft. He did know her habit of taking a long, slow look at anything and everything that came over her desk was hell to suffer though. “Confidential?”

“Yeah,” he said, setting his jaw and refusing to whine. “Confidential. I need advice and help, and I need it from some your rank or higher.”

She leaned back and steepled her fingers. “You get yourself in some kind of trouble, Agent Lestrade?”

So he was “Agent Lestrade” now. That was probably just as well. He’d rather talk her in from a distance than find he’d accidentally pushed her away thinking she was already his ally. He met her gaze. “Depends on how you define ‘trouble.’”

She waited, and when he didn’t speak, she made a “come on, out with it” gesture with her fingers, beckoning. Her jewel-red nail polish flashed. “Tell Mamma.”

He gave a humorless chuckle, and flashed a lad’s smile. “Ok. ‘Mamma’ is it? All right, Mamma—I’m falling in love with one of our own—and it’s not inside the nice, neat lines. As near as I can work out, it’s not right, it’s not wrong, it’s not technically against the regulations, but…if it gets out it’s not going to be easy to explain, either.”

“Does this Wonder Woman have a name?”

The thought of Mycroft as Wonder Woman was somewhere in the realm of disturbing. “I…” He swallowed. “More like Superman than Wonder Woman. Or,” he laughed, suddenly, years of childhood comics coming to mind. “Maybe more like Braniac 5. Or Spock. Or…”

She blinked, and raised her hand. “Stop.” She shook her head, dreads shifting on her shoulders. “You’re soft for Mr. Freeze?” When he just stared back at her, annoyed at the insult, she back pedaled slightly. “Holmes. You’ve fallen for Holmes?” He nodded, and she sighed in deepest sympathy. “Oh, you poor, poor baby,” she said. “You poor sonofabitch. Say no more—I’ll have you out of that secondment so fast the arctic bastard won’t know what hit him. He’s had you ten years—him and his crazy brother. Time to get you out of that bug house.”

“No.”

She frowned, then leaned forward, sober and kind and trying her damnedest for him. “Agent…you’re not actually hoping it can go anywhere, are you?”

He shrugged. “It—might be.”

Mycroft had opened his lips. He’d returned Lestrade’s kiss. His fingers, on Lestrade’s shoulders, had dug in deep as he held on tight. And he’d promised….He’d promised to call when he was ready. If he ever was.

“He promised,” he said, softly. “Not—nothing’s sure. But he didn’t run. And he is attracted.”

“Mr. Lestrade, do you have any idea how many people have imagined love in those eyes? Or at least compassion? Do you know how many of our interns and operatives spin fantasies of being the one—the one person in all the world—who will melt that heart?” She shook her head. “I had one girl in here in tears, spinning a story where, if I’d just let her work with him, help him, fill in for his, and I quote, ‘bitch of a PA,” she’d be able to bring him around and heal him. Mr. Lestrade, we know what he is—MI5, Mi6, the Home Office, all the little secret Secret Services no one quite knows about because they’re not quite on the books. All of us who answer to the wind out of the arctic. You’re only setting yourself up for disappointment. He may have had a heart once. He cut it out and hid it, like the wizard in a Russian fairy tale.”

He took a breath, and said, with as much calm as he could muster, “He’s said he finds me attractive. We’ve… There’s something there. Something really happening. Last week…last week I kissed him.”

“Did he kiss back?” It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him—but he could hear the cynicism and doubt.

“Better, I think,” Lestrade said. “He _thought about it_. Look, have you met him?”

She nodded. He licked his lips, then, and staggered on. “Then you know—you know what it means. Mycroft Holmes let me kiss him—and he thought about it. And he’s still thinking. And he promised to…”

“What?”

“To let me know when he was ready. If he was ready.”

She let her breath out in a stunned gust— _whooooosh._ “You’re serious.”

“Yes. Ma’am, he’s not technically my superior: I’m seconded to him, but you’re my boss in MI5 and Marks is over at the Met. Marks doesn’t know about any of this, though—I have to go up to Levinson before I’m working with someone inside the Met who knows I work for MI5…and he only knows he’s not cleared to know more than that. If I’m going to work this out so it can’t get me or Mycroft in trouble, you’re my best bet. Ma’am, he’s not my boss. I’m not even technically in his chain of command. I’m a consultant and liaison. I work with Sherlock. I act as an intermediary and line of communication between him and our own anti-terrorist division. It’s not technically wrong. We’re not technically in the same division or line of command.”

She shook her head. “It’s not good, Lestrade. People will question. Well—they would. The only reason he doesn’t sign his signature as ‘God Incarnate’ is because he was brought up Old County, and he’d find it tacky to boast that way.”

“Does that mean no one—no one in all the civil services—can have a relationship with him?”

She hummed, thinking about it. “Well—I will admit, it could be worse. You’re older, and you’re right, you’re not technically a subordinate. And you were the aggressor?”

“I kind of prefer ‘initiator,’ but, yeah.”

She nodded. “The easiest solution would be to pull you out of the secondment. Then the two of you could pretty much do what you like.”

It would break his heart, he thought. “I’ve worked with him and his brother for over a decade,” he said. “We’re a stable team. We work well together.”

“Yes, but—appearances, Mr. Lestrade. There are appearances to be kept up.”

He didn’t want to lose what they had. He didn’t want what they had to get in the way of what they could have. “Maybe if we redefined the lines of authority?”

She thought about it. “I suppose it’s possible. I’ll have to talk to him, though. You know that. I can’t rearrange the existing structure without talking to Mr. Holmes first.”

He shivered, then. “Let me first, then?”

She was silent for a very long time, then nodded. “Very well. But please, don’t make this worse for us? Don’t be too… don’t hope for too much…” She growled, and ran her fingers like spikes into her hair, tugging softly, then looked at him in pure frustration. “For the love of heaven, blud… be careful. You’re top o’ de top, but Mr. Holmes—he’s even more top, you understand? If you got this wrong, you can end up long ‘way away, no ticket back.” Her Jamaican accent twisted with her carefully learned Estuary patterns, creating something uniquely her own. “Be careful, Greg. Talk soft. Be sure you’re not dreaming.”

He nodded, and left. The next morning he called over to Babylon-on-Thames and made an appointment with Anthea to see Mycroft two days later, after he got off at the Met.

 

They sat in Mycroft’s office in uneasy silence, having run out of their ordinary warming-up banter, and having no immediate work projects to move ahead with. After a minute had trickled by, Mycroft said, “You wanted to see me about something?” He wouldn’t meet Lestrade’s eyes. The shared hug, the kiss, the finger tracing Lestrade’s cheek and sliding down to his shoulder—they all hung between them, unspoken.

“Yes.” Lestrade cleared his throat, and said, “I want—I’ve talked to my MI5 superior. She thinks we may be able to shift the current arrangement between MI5 and the MI6 to put me more clearly outside your immediate chain of command.”

Mycroft didn’t miss the implication. He looked down his nose at the desk, and said, hesitantly, “Are you sure? I—there’s safety in things as they are. Some things are better imagined than attempted.”

“I know I want us to be free to attempt them or not, whatever we choose, without having to worry about giving Nesbit or Magnussen or anyone else a lever to use against us.”

“I’m afraid there’s no hope of that. I doubt there’s any relationship either of us could have that could not be used against us in some way.”

“That’s no reason to make it easier for them.”

Mycroft nodded, absently. “No. I see no reason to do CAM’s work for him.” He looked up. “Speaking of which, Lady Smallwood’s erring ‘Humbert Humbert’ is apparently in hot water. Word has hit the tabloids that he may have misbehaved once upon a time.”

“Magnussen leaked?”

“No. Merely the preliminary rumble of thunder. I suspect it’s intended to leave Lady Smallwood with no doubt of his intent, though.”

“Can’t we stop it?”

“Lord Smallwood is hardly a true innocent in this, regardless of Lady Elizabeth’s protests. As you said, it’s impossible to believe a man in his thirties mistook a fifteen-year-old for an adult and a peer.”

“So you approve of blackmail when the victim is guilty?”

“I’ve resorted to blackmail when the victim is innocent—when needs must.” He gave a bitter smile. “I am not a good man, Greg. A soot-stained brownie at best, pulling the stool out from under the bums of our enemies. I’m not always ethical about it.”

“You’re not Magnussen.”

“And, yet, I suffer a Magnussen to survive. I leave him free in spite of the erring husbands and innocent wives, the children who never knew their parents’ secrets, the true victims of blackmail. I’m letting Magnussen survive for now, because I’m afraid of what he’ll do to the nation and to those I love if I bring him down.”

“You’re afraid he’ll destroy Sherlock.”

Mycroft nodded, then said, softly, “And those Sherlock loves. Moriarty’s not the only one who can figure out Sherlock’s pressure points. John. Mary. The coming child. Mrs. Hudson. Miss Hooper.” He looked up. “You.”

“Is he hunting Sherlock?”

“He’s hunting me. Of course he’s hunting Sherlock. The good news is Sherlock’s too injured and drug-dimmed to pursue the matter. I’m hoping he’s finally given it up, what with his concern for the Watsons. He dare not make their burdens any heavier than they already are.”

“Yeah.” Lestrade sighed and crossed his arms. “At least John’s still living with her.”

“Yes.” Mycroft’s face was still. “Relationships are not easy. Even ordinary people struggle.”

“And you’re not ordinary?”

“I’m…talentless.” He grimaced. “I attempted it once. It failed before it even had a chance of beginning. He betrayed me after the first kiss. I was not born with the blessing of Venus.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be the one who gets to judge,” Lestrade said, softly. “That’s for others to decide.”

Mycroft met his eyes, then. “It would be easier for everyone concerned if we gave it a miss, you know.”

“Easier isn’t always better.”

“Even if I contact your supervisor and work something out…I’m not…I’m not sure.”

“Me, neither. But I’d hate like hell to end up in the soup because I tried to figure it out without sorting out the rules and regulations first.”

“Logical.” Mycroft grinned, softly—a rueful, wistful, pensive expression. “Very well, then. I’ll have Anthea call Mrs. Searles.”

Lestrade nodded, and rose. “Good,” he said. “That’s taken care of, then.” He chuckled under his breath. “Now maybe I can sleep at night without waking up with the whim-whams.”

Mycroft, rising, met his eye with laughter in his own. “I’m afraid the matter of lines of command isn’t what’s been keeping _me_ awake at night.”

Lestrade’s heart gave a jolt. He shivered at the thought.

The look in Mycroft’s eyes, the smile as he saw Lestrade out—those kept him awake for hours, for weeks to come, until the day he was called into his supervisors office only to find he’d been promoted to her rank, and made head of his own division.

“You answer to Lady Smallwood,” she said. “But even she has limited authority over you. And then there’s this.” She slipped out a pile of legal-looking documents.

“What’s that?”

“Disclosure statement. Mr. Holmes and I decided the best way to skin this cat was to state the issue upfront from the start. It says you and Mr. Holmes have an ongoing friendship and personal relationship as a result of over a decade of shared association. That you’re neither of you intending to do anything but allow that to become closer, but that neither of you is compelled, and neither of you is situated to abuse the relationship to the detriment of Her Majesty’s civil service. We use this sort of thing for times when prior relationships or accusations of nepotism between spouses or siblings might come into play.”

He flipped through the pages, scanning the wording. “Quite a lot of words used to say ‘We’re friends, have been, and may become friends with benefits—if you don’t like it, sod off.’”

“Thus has it ever been,” she said, and handed him a pen.

He jotted his signature, printed neat initials, signed again, and dated the document. “Done?”

“Done.”

“Am I under your command anymore?”

“Loosely? Yes. But no more than you have been this ten years gone.”

“Loosely enough I can hug you and say thanks?”

She laughed. “Better not. Look at the kind of work you generate when you do that, Agent Lestrade.”

“Thanks,” he said, smiling. “Seriously—thanks.”

She nodded, but her eyes were haunted. “It was interesting meeting him, Greg—I mean, dealing with him closely enough to judge. He’s a difficult one, no matter what your fantasies. Be careful.”

“I’ve known him ten years and more, ma’am. It’s not like you can claim I was reckless.”

She shook her head. “No.” she said. “You’re wrong. Loving that one will always be reckless.”

When he thought about it later, he decided she was probably right. But it was a bit late to do anything about it. He was pretty sure he loved Mycroft Holmes too much to back out now.

 

He had mixed feelings when Sherlock and John came to their first case with him, just before Christmas. There seemed so many things he couldn’t say—so many topics either too private or too contentious to take up. He didn’t dare risk mentioning Magnussen: he was fairly sure Mycroft was counting that as a subject best not to remind Sherlock of. John’s marriage with Mary was apparently still stressed, and the question of the child a far from happy subject as a result. The fact that even before being shot, Sherlock had been working much less for the Yard wasn’t a happy topic either.

Sherlock was just back from hospital, and he moved cautiously, with less pure, unadulterated confidence than he’d once shown. When some of the team teased him about his status as “Sir Shags-a lot,” the look he shot them was as much haunted as bitter. Lestrade silenced them with a hand gesture, and refocused the whole team on the corpse.

It was almost certainly only a five on Sherlock’s scale of difficulty. Barely an afternoon’s entertainment. In spite of that, it felt as though everyone there clung to the puzzle of the murder with fierce need.

“What are your plans for Christsmas?” Sally asked, attempting diplomacy for a change.

“Holiday with my parents, in the country,” Sherlock said. “Mary and John are coming, too.” He glanced at Lestrade, and said, “My bossy brother as well. Garwood should be grateful—my brother can’t call him out in the middle of the festivities to do his legwork for him.”

John, having been painfully grim all afternoon, lit up, and gave Sherlock what Lestrade was willing to swear was a nudge. “Not that he’s not got nice legs.”

“And so willing ot use them in the service of the queen.”

The two men giggled, like schoolboys. Lestrade did a quick double-take, almost panicking that they’d guessed what he and Mycroft hadn’t yet even taken further than a few meals out and a snog in the back of Mycroft’s big black car. Then he realized—it was just two boys laughing at their “witty” comments about the “queen.” He swore, mentally: How could Sherlock be so brilliant, and John at least bright enough to be a capable medical doctor, and yet the two of them could make Beevis and Butthead look adult and sophisticated when it came to Mycroft’s sexuality?

He was just as glad he’d never made a point of his bisexual status. With associates like John and Sherlock it would be like being trapped in an endless Benny Hill rerun…

 

“He’s not comfortable with anyone’s orientation,” Mycroft said the night before he was to go down to his parent’s house—the night before the night before Christmas. “If he’s a bit worse about mine, well.” He shrugged. “I can never decide if he’s more affronted by gays because I am one, or by me because I’m gay. Needless to say, either way he’s appalled.”

“I’m not,” Lestrade said.

“I’d noticed.”

The two sat on a sofa in Mycroft’s rooms at the Diogenes. Lestrade was terrified. It was the first time they’d arranged a date to make more than a kiss or a hug possible.

Their conversation had been falling to bits all night. The bedroom was too real an option. Their privacy was too complete and secure.

Lestrade fretted, trying to find something to say, and coming up short. Before he could throw aside caution and risk saying something—anything—regardless of how stupid, Mycroft slipped down the sofa, leaned in, and proceeded to almost break Lestrade’s nose.

Five minutes and a spoiled pocket square later, Lestrade eased himself close to the other man, and said, “Now—let’s try that again.”

Mycroft laughed, even as he eased his arms around Lestrade. “I don’t do this, you know. I really, really don’t do this.”

“No,” Lestrade responded, “But you soon will.”

They didn’t sleep together that night—but by the end of the evening they knew they would.

“Sleep well,” Mycroft said as Lestrade left.

“Fat chance,” Lestrade laughed. “Have a good Christmas with the family—but come back to me.”

Mycroft smiled. “I will.”

Neither of them was prepared for Mycroft to come back wrecked, with Charles Magnussen dead and  his brother’s life in his hands.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The End! All wrapped up with a ribbon on, and graphic enough I'm changing the classification to "Explicit." And I like how it all turned out.
> 
> Have fun, m'dears. Indulge in a treat for Black Friday...one you can afford.
> 
> (Puts her hat out on the pavement, and starts singing "Playin' Real Good, For Free," in a much, much better voice and with much better stylings than she can actually offer in real life.)(If you liked it, toss a penny in the cap, lovies...)

“You said to call when I was ready.”

Lestrade, standing at the door of his flat—a flat that deserved the description “humble” if ever a flat did—looked at Mycroft and felt his stomach drop.

“What’s wrong?”

Mycroft, bless him, wasn’t a reflexive liar. “Magnussen’s dead.”

“That’s….complicated.” Lestrade stepped back, letting the other man in. “Really complicated. Nesbit? Is he going to think you were behind it?”

“Almost certainly.” Mycroft stalked in and stopped, looking around the room with an odd air of observant apathy. It was as though he noted the cheap carpet, the pre-fab moldings and baseboards, the mass-produced poster-art decorating the walls—and simply didn’t care much. Worse, as though he didn’t care about anything at the moment.

“Here—off with your coat.” Lestrade helped slip the coat off Mycroft’s shoulders, and hung it on the coat rack by the door. All the while his mind was spinning. “Why’s he going to suspect you?”

“Oh. I didn’t say?” Mycroft’s voice was sharp and tinny and artificially bright—and desperate. “Silly me. It’s just—it was Sherlock shot him. In front of one of my special ops teams. Shot him right through the forehead, execution style from less than a foot away. There’s nothing left of the back of the man’s head.”

“Bloody hell, Mike…. I… Hell. Bloody hell.”

“Eloquently put.” Mycroft turned, then, grabbed Lestrade’s lapels, and growled. “I’ve been ten hours. Ten hours while we dealt with the mess. And the whole time all I could think was you told me to call when I was ready.” He tugged. “I’m ready.”

Lestrade pulled him tight and close. He let one hand slip up and cup the back of Mycroft’s skull, pulling his head down to rest against his own. Then, softly, he said, “No, love. You’re not. You’re really not.”

Mycroft pulled away and paced angrily around the room, coming to a stop staring at Lestrade’s art nouveau Mucha print. “You’re not a mind reader.”

“No. Not a complete idiot, either, no matter what….” He stopped. “Look, where’s Sherlock now?”

“Lockup. Basement of MI5. Refuses to talk to anyone, including me.”

“Why the hell did he… What happened, Mike? It was supposed to be Christmas dinner with the family, yeah?”

“Yes.” Mycroft sighed, then and his shoulders drooped. “I should have realized a family as old as ours couldn’t give up on the family traditions. Sherlock drugged the lot of us, stole my laptop, and went jogging off with Watson to confront the dragon in his lair. And then he lost. And then?” He shrugged. The motion was hopeless and exhausted and eloquent.

“Bloody hell,” Lestrade said again—and, after standing for blank moments after, finally turned and lumbered into the kitchen, where he put on water for tea.

“A true Briton,” Mycroft said, leaning in the doorway looking in. “Everything’s better with a cuppa inside you.”

“’S good for what ails you. Tetley or something fancier?”

“Tetley’s fine. But that’s honestly not what I was hoping to find inside me.”

Lestrade nodded, but refused to meet Mycroft’s eye. Instead he rummaged through the cupboard, searching for a mug with a suitable decal or saying to suit Mycroft’s needs for the evening. He settled for a fancy oriental-style pattern of a dragon snaking over the exterior of the cup. “Yeah. You said.”

“Not on for it?” Mycroft tried to make his words light. He failed, and they sank into the depths of the evening like stones into muddy water.

Lestrade made himself turn, then, and look at the man he hoped would eventually be his lover. “No. Not tonight. Not—“ He rubbed his face wearily, hands wide and strong. When he let them drop, Mycroft was still looking at him—patient, but chill. “It’s not what you think, love. I want you—now more than I can say. But—look. I’ll do anything for you. Even this. I’ll make you tea. I’ll run out to the local and buy you enough scotch to put you in a coma. Hell, I’ll hold you tight and neck with you till you come just from the foreplay, yeah? But…I kind of hoped the first time we made love—the first time you made love—it could be about how much I love you, and how much you love me, and how much we wanted to do this thing. Not about bloody Sherlock putting a bullet in bloody Magnussen’s bloody head. Or about how much you just wanted someone to drive the memory out of your unforgetting, genius mind. When I watch you come apart, I don’t want it to be because you’re looking for oblivion and I’m just the shortest route there, ok?

Mycroft’s face went so still Lestrade knew—just _knew_ —he’d blown away any chance they ever had of getting together from there on in. He scowled and turned away, blundering off to hunt for any trace of biscuits that might improbably exist in his cupboards. He heard the solid sound of Mycroft walking across the lino, the tap-tap-tap of hard, high-quality leather entirely unlike the quality the softer synthetics of his soles gave his own footfall. He heard Mycroft pick up the kettle and pour.

“Milk and sugar both, as I recall?”

“Yeah. I like it rich and sweet when I can get it.”

“Apparently not.”

“Shit.” He turned back.

Mycroft flicked him a nervous smile. “Sorry. That was regret, talking, not resentment.”

“Right.”

Mycroft shrugged, eyes sad, then picked up his own mug and went back to the sitting room. Lestrade heard him settle heavily on the sofa.

He leaned over the counter, eyes closed, swearing sofly. This was impossible.

It hurt. It was tangled and confused and impossible. Just—impossible. Im-bloody-possible.

Fucking Sherlock.

“Are you joining me?” The question held more insecurity than its owner wanted: cool control ruined by a faint trace of melancholy.

“Out in a minute.” Desperate for an excuse for having lingered, he grabbed a jar of marmite and a carton of stick pretzels out of the cupboard, cranking the jar open and dumping the pretzels in a bowl. He nested the jar in the bowl surrounded by the pretzels, then gathered up both the bowl and his mug. Going out to the sitting room, he placed the bowl on the coffee table.

“Not much in the house, really. Not loaded up with goodies and sweeties, like if I had a family around for the holidays. But the marmite’s not a half-bad dip.”

Mycroft looked up at him. He looked back down. Laughter sparked deep in Mycroft’s eyes—and before Lestrade knew it, both men were howling. Lestrade barely got his mug down on the table before he’d lost it completely and dropped, wailing, to the floor, face in his hands, giggling madly.

When they finally had both slowed to a hiccupping, soft stop, he looked up. “Sorry, Mike. Sorry I—“

“Oh, do shut up, old thing….do. Really.” Mycroft blushed. “You were right. I just…” He fell silent, and looked away. “I…”

“No. No need to say it. I understand.”

“I don’t.” Mycroft was pensive. “Truly. I’ve lived almost forty-five years without the questionable solace of sex to fall back on in distress. I have no idea why, now, it was the first thing I thought of.”

“Me, I’ll count myself flattered.” To be the first man to whom Mycroft Holmes had ever turned, looking for forgetfulness and release in a lover’s arms was no small thing.

Mycroft’s eyes flicked to his, and he smiled—a small, fond smile, not without laughter. “And well you should be—I only seek oblivion from the finest. Great scotch, superb brandy…and you.”

“Oh, drink your Tetley’s and try the bloody pretzel and marmite, why don’t you?” Lestrade clambered to his feet and joined Mycroft on the sofa. He picked up his tea, took a long pull, then said, “Nesbit: he’s going to come gunning for you. Any idea how?”

“He’s got the attack on Magnussen back in the summer. That was never officially resolved, and never will be. He can make of it what he likes, and he already thought it was me. Now, with Sherlock doing the actual deed…” He shrugged. “I’m not precisely known for my lack of sangfroid. And those who know me unwilling to kill needlessly are few and far between by intent: I gain nothing if my enemies think me anything less than ruthless.”

“Can you cover? Keep it from hitting the streets that Sherlock…” He flinched away from the word.

Mycroft didn’t. “That Sherlock murdered the man? To the general public, yes—and to most of the government, likewise. That’s being taken care of even as we speak. The killing will have been done by a political extremist unhappy with Mr. Magnussen’s control over mass media. The sod was killed on site, and the scandal will fade within days. But Nesbit’s too high up for the cover story. He’ll be one of the people at the star chamber tomorrow determining what is to be done about my brother. He’ll know the truth, even if his first move won’t be to accuse me.” He smiled tightly. “He’s more likely to assess the situation, and stab me in the back at a later time.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What can I do.” Mycroft was bleak. “Sherlock committed a murder, Lestrade. The fact that his victim entirely deserved it doesn’t alter the fact that Sherlock went rogue and undertook the killing on his own recognizance. It’s one thing for me to put out a hit on a man. What I do, as The British Government, is still subject to review, to checks and balances, to oversight. I’m accountable. I’m also granted certain latitude. Sherlock is not. What he did is not even a simple assassination. It’s murder, by any standard you choose to impose.”

“He’s in lock-up, then?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t send ‘im to prison, Mike. Only two likely outcomes: he’s killed in a matter of days, or he manages to provoke the rest to riot. Or both. Can’t swear the little bastard won’t manage both. He’s got it in him.”

“I know.”

“He’s got too many enemies in there already.”

“I know.”

“No—look, Mike, I don’t think you really do. He’s a prat—but he’s a prat who’s helped put dozens away, and the one’s he’s put away have as often as not been picked up by the papers. He’s famous—or notorious. There’s plenty who’ll want to kill him either for personal revenge or for the glory. And you know his mouth. If you let him near anyone—the guards, the other prisoners—he’s going to take the piss out of ‘em like he does everyone. It’s going to be bad…and it’s going to be bad press. Not like the prison systems exactly beloved by the nation to begin with, you know?”

“What should I do, then?” Mycroft went prim and bureaucratic, folding his hands in his lap. “What ideas do you have?”

“Hell.” He leaned down over the cup. “I don’t know. He could ‘die’ again.”

“Hard to pull off with all England watching, and knowing we’ve done it before.”

“So get him out of England. I know MI6 has been pushing you to team him with the Duckling again.”

Mycroft paused… then said, in a tightly controlled voice. “You’re far more clever than you let on, you know.”

“Let me guess—that’s what you were already planning for?”

“Yes. But it’s little better, you know. A suicide mission. He’s likely to die. And I’m not comfortable with him and the Duckling. They’re almost as mutually obsessed as Sherlock and Watson. It’s a dangerous combination.”

“Better than prison. And easier to present, since the only other real choice is to really assassinate him. Can’t let someone of Sherlock’s calibre with Sherlock’s connections run wild.”

Mycroft nodded. “Exactly.” He put the tea down. “I’m… You know he’s still likely to never come back?”

“Yeah.”

Mycroft sighed. Then, with extreme precision, he said, “As you’ve presented a valid argument against my own prescription for the current situation, do you think you could perhaps provide one of the other alternatives you suggested? Because in spite of the logic of my decision, I find myself in dire need of comfort, tonight.”

“Well. I’ve made the tea. And with a meeting on Sherlock tomorrow, you really don’t want me to run down t’ the local for scotch. So… how about you slide over here and we see how much snogging it takes to relax you and send you to sleep after?”

 

Mycroft had made out like a crazy thing—and tumbled helpless into sleep before any climax could be reached. Lestrade had woken him just enough to get them both to the bed, then called Anthea and arranged for her to bring over Mycroft’s best suit for the following day.

“What are we going to do about this mess?” he asked her, once the basics had been covered.

“Don’t ask,” she said.

“No—really. Even if we send Sherlock away, it’s a mess. We can’t afford Nesbit any more.”

“We can’t afford not to have Nesbit, either. Greg, he’s too useful. Though…” she sighed. “With Magnussen gone, we’re left with only part of the winning combination. It was the three-way thing with Nesbit, Magnussen, and the Duckling that was really useful. Magnussen was a better spy than half the real spies. He loved collecting secrets, and he loved owning people like Nesbit. With the Duckling in the middle dealing with both, well—we could feed anything we liked into the system, and half the time we could modify or even rule out things they thought they knew from other sources. Then they’d bounce the edited truth back and forth between them, a perfect self-reinforcing echo chamber.”

“So you can lose Nesbit?”

“No. What we need is to replace Magnussen.”

“Why not with one of our own, then?”

She snorted. “Like who? There was only one Magnussen.”

“Printed media’s not what it used to be. Find someone in digital. Internet’s where the real power is these days.”

“It’s an idea,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

 

“They went for it,” Mycroft said the next day, calling straight from Whitehall. “Lady Smallwood wasn’t happy, but she didn’t want to have Sherlock killed. Not for having killed Magnussen. Not since her husband killed himself. If she hadn’t been behind me I don’t think it would have worked. But she was.”

“Anyone try to put pressure on you?”

“Sir Edwin took a pass or two over me. Tried to call my objectivity into question.”

“He’s one of Nesbit’s?”

“I hadn’t thought so. I still don’t. But they were working together. Sir Edwin may just be worried. He’s loyal to Lady Smallwood, and he doesn’t like the degree of independence I’ve been granted. And he knows about the other one.”

“The other….?”

“Brother.” Mycroft’s mouth puckered. “It’s a long story, and an old one. Suffice it to say, there have always been questions about what happened to Sherry.”

“Sherry?”

Mycroft sighed. “It’s not my secret, Greg. It’s not. I’m sorry…but…”

“No, no. Let it go. Just—you think you came through intact?”

“As much so as I could have hoped for. I’m not convinced Sherlock won’t be even more in danger than he would have been. The more I think about it, the more I worry that Nesbit will find a way to attack him when he joins the Duckling. But—we shall cross that bridge when we come to it.”

They didn’t meet that week. Mycroft was too busy making the arrangements for Sherlock’s departure, and Greg was staying well clear, if only to ensure for Mycroft’s sake that he wasn’t marked as one of Mycroft’s “hostages to fortune.” Instead he stuck to his work at the Met—and called on his MI5 supervisor.

 

“You really don’t have to—but if you can help…”

Mrs. Searles looked at him with amused disgust. “Mr. Lestrade, I do not leave my babies out in the cold.”

He chuckled. “Yes, Mamma. Is Mycroft one of your babies, too, now?”

“It would appear even his horrible brother is,” she said. “Which is what I get for sleeping around with MI6, I suspect. What can I do for you all?”

“You’ve got contacts,” Greg said. “Hackers.”

“This is so.” She sounded like a calm, smug oracle. “Say on, grasshopper.”

“I’ve got someone who needs to replace a missing link in a misinformation loop. It can be one of ours, or one of our enemies’, or a wild card. But with Magnussen dead it would be desirable to continue with someone who can carry on the sort of spreading of rumor and information we were able to accomplish through him and his papers. Ideas?”

“Some. None I’ll tell you, though. They’re classified.”

“I have a contact with high enough clearance.”

“Mr. Holmes himself?”

“No—but the next best thing.”

She studied him, then smiled. “Give me the contact information, Mr. Lestrade. I’ll see what I can do for you.”

 

“Hush, Mike. It will be done soon.”

“I know. I just…”

Lestrade heard the tone of sorry beneath the cold determination. “It’s all right, Mike. You’ll see it through. This way, at least, Sherlock’s got a chance.”

“I just wish there were a way to bring him back.”

“It would take quite the emergency to override murder.”

“I know.” In the background Lestrade could hear Anthea’s voice over the dull hum of the limo. “I’ve got to go, Greg. We’re at Whitehall. I’ll talk to you later.”

“I’ll be here when you do.” He smiled, hanging up. No matter what, Mycroft soldiered on. Lestrade felt an odd pride in the man. Others might fault him for that unswerving, unsentimental endurance; Lestrade could only admire it. His beloved was like the rising sun, the turning seasons, the slow sweep of years: you could count on him like Death and Taxes.

But, then, given that as the British Government he was often in command of both, Lestrade reckoned it was only to be expected.

His phone rang again, and he frowned as he picked up. “What’s up, Andy-panda? Is Mike in trouble?”

“No,” she said. “But I have something for you to do while Mr. Nesbit is out of his office.”

“Work for Mike?”

“Indirectly.” He could hear a smile in her voice. “Mrs. Searles says to tell you it’s not a request, it’s a command.”

“Ooooh,” he said, perking up. “I thought you two might get on with each other.”

“Like a house afire,” she said. “I want you to plant a virus in Mr. Nesbit’s computer software.”

“Can you get me in?”

“Got fake ID in hand. You, Mr. Lestrade, just became ‘Jim from IT.’”

“Wait—what? Wasn’t that what that bumfuck Moriarty called himself when he was dating Molly?”

She laughed. “Consider it a commemorative title. Can you do it?”

He laughed. “Meet me at Whitehall?”

“No need. I’m parked outside now. We’ll drive you over and I’ll brief you as we go.”

 

It was fast. It was easy. A Whitehall ID on a lanyard. A smile at Nesbit’s receptionist. A quick duck into Nesbit’s office and a half-hour spent pecking and prodding while the thumbdrive uploaded and installed a new set of software. Another smile at the receptionist…and it was done.

 

“Is this going to solve the problem, Andy?”

She smiled. “More than you could ever believe,” she said. “More than you could possibly, possibly believe.”

“Does Mycroft know?”

“No—and don’t tell him. Just once in his life that man needs plausible deniability.”

“All right. When will you tell him?”

She looked at her watch and thought. Then she smiled. “In approximately twenty hours.”

“Isn’t that when Sherlock’s set to leave?” he asked.

“Plausible deniability, Greg. It’s not just a suggestion, it’s a principle!”

He snorted, but let the subject pass. He was a spy. He walked in a world of secrets, and understood that some of them were not, and never would be his own.

 

“He leaves tomorrow.”

“I know. Do you want me there?”

“No. Better not. Have you said your goodbyes?”

“He hasn’t asked to see me.”

“He does care.”

“I know. But if he asks for anyone, it will be John. And Mary. She’s his, too, now.”

“No. I don’t think quite—instead, I think they’re both John’s.”

“For a reserved hermit, you’re quite sharp, you know. Sharper than Sherlock, anyway.”

“I always was the smart one.” Mycroft’s voice shook. Then, slipping down the sofa, he said. “Hold me.”

Lestrade wrapped him close. “Anything else you need?”

“No. Not now. Later, when it’s done. But for tonight, this is good,” Mycroft said, and closed his eyes and slept, with his head pillowed on Lestrade’s shoulder.

 

Lestrade felt light that day. Not grieving, not angry, not anything. Not looking forward, or back. Just floating, waiting for it to be over, and something new to start.

After work he took himself to the pub. He laughed with the regulars, enjoyed his pint, watched the game on telly. He thought he felt good. He didn’t think he felt bad, though in his head an airplane took off on a small government runway, and Mycroft and John and Mary stood below, watching it leave. The knowledge was cold, and clear.

One of the players intercepted the ball. He sent it flying with a hooked kick…and the static cut in. Faded out. Cut in again. Then the face was there—a face out of nightmares, made odder and more frightening still by the zombie-animation of a computer gif.

“Did you miss me? Did you miss me? Did you miss me? Did you…..”

He pulled the phone from his pocket—then paused. If this was as serious as it looked, Mike would be too busy to talk to him now. And if…

Just if…

He frowned, and hit Anthea’s number instead of Mycroft’s. “Hey, Andy-panda. You watching the telly, love?”

She chuckled—low and sweet ahd mischievous. “Hang up, Greg. If anyone asks….you know noooothing.”

He laughed. “Will do.”

Sometimes, he thought, being a spy was nothing but grief and heartache. But by God, every so often it was a gas and a half.

 

He met Mycroft in the Diogenes. He expected they’d dine, first. Instead Mycroft collected him with a single burning glance, and they headed up to Mycroft’s private rooms.

“He’s back,” Mycroft said, once the door was shut and locked.

“Yeah. I thought maybe.”

Mycroft nodded, then said, simply, “Now.”

Lestrade didn’t ask if he was sure. He didn’t say anything—just nodded, and waited.

Mycroft stepped close. He slid his hand around Greg’s waist. He leaned down and sought Greg’s lips.

The kiss was slow, at first, but never hesitant. Mycroft had learned the basics since that night he’d almost broken Greg’s nose. He’d learned that kisses could encompass entire dialogs, form wordless passages of question and answer, statement and reprise, theme and motif, building to a climax of unresolved tensions, then resolving and moving on.

“I love that you don’t wear ties,” he murmured in Lestrade’s ear, as his fingers raced down the buttons of his lover’s shirt. “I love that you don’t wear waistcoats and braces and vests.” His hands found Lestrade’s skin, traced over the soft chest hair, sought out small nipples. “You’re not so hard to peel.”

“Like a banana?” Lestrade whispered, laughing. He tugged Mycroft out of his jacket and began on the waistcoat, letting the detached chain dangle from the watch pocket as he dove in and began on the shirt below. “I’m glad you’re more difficult. Layer after layer, and you there inside, hidden from sight. Aaahhh….” He paused as Mycroft suckled at the turn of his neck, stroked his chest. “Oh, God. That’s good, sweetheart….”

“Mmmmm. Don’t forget to remove my cufflinks or we’ll be stalled for ages,” Mycroft murmured, and nibbled on, nipping at Lestrade’s earlobe.

Lestrade laughed, but traced along Mycroft’s arms until he’d found the suggested cufflinks and removed them, tipping them into Mycroft’s trouser-pocket—and pausing for a moment to tickle at the soft valley where leg met groin. He laughed breathily to hear Mycroft moan. “Like that?”

“Oh, God, yes.”

He stripped away onion layer after onion layer as Mycroft kissed his way along his neck to the point of his shoulders and back, coming at last to lean with his lips pressed to Greg’s forehead. Greg hesitated at the trousers, but Mycroft said, “No. All of it. I want it done. No more halfway answers.”

They stood at last, naked in the dim light filtering in from the street outside. Blinds cast striped shadows over them.

“You’re beautiful,” Mycroft said, wondering and remorseful. “You could have anyone.”

Lestrade answered with his hands, tracing the arch of Mycroft’s clavicle, the plumb-line drop down his abdomen from throat to chest, from chest to navel, from navel to groin. He fanned his fingers wide, gripping Mycroft’s hips, and drew close to mouth his nipples into hard nubbins. The desire caught flame, as Mycroft moaned.

“Bedroom,” Lestrade growled. “You prepared?”

“Yes.”

“Any idea what you want?”

“You.”

“A little more specific?”

Mycroft giggled, borderline hysterical. “First time, remember?”

“Couldn’t forget if you paid me, lover. First time. Fuck—never thought I had a virgin kink, but, God…”

“Enjoy it while you can, then. First times only happen once.”

“Not if we’re inventive,” Lestrade growled. “I suspect we can come up with a lot of first times over the years to come.” He tumbled Mycroft to the mattress and crept over him. He found the other man’s hands, drew them up over his head, held them down—and growled as Mycroft whimpered in excitement. “Like that, then?”

“Nnnnng.”

“Yeah, all right.” He nipped Mycroft’s earlobe, nipped tiny, delicate pinpricks down that long neck, mouthed his way back up to Mycroft’s lips and dove in, ravenous, pushing for more—more touch, more feeling, more madness.

Less control.

His hips rocked, as he and Mycroft rutted against each other, cock to cock. He was growing drunk with it. Mycroft, larger and taller, lay beneath him unresisting.

“Stop me,” Lestrade growled. “Stop me—you don’t have to surrender. It’s not about surrender.”

Mycroft gave a sudden fierce, frustrated growl of his own—then, with a twist and a squirm he overturned them—rising up, straddling Lestrade, pinning the older man’s hands over his head. “Yes,” he panted, desperate and longing and furious. “yes. It’s about surrender, you idiot. Forty-five years I’ve defended and defended and defended. For the love of God, let me surrender the damned fortress. Please…” He bowed down over his trapped lover, pressing his face into the curve of Lestrade’s neck. “Please, Greg, use your damned head. You can let me take your fortress another day. That’s fine. I don’t mind. But—it won’t feel like giving myself, if you refuse to take what I’m offering.” The last sentence was soft, hungry, sad, greedy.

Greg twisted his wrists free, found Mycroft’s face, and caged it. His fingers slipped into the soft, thinning hair. His thumbs stroked over damp eyes. “Shhh. Shhhhh. You want me to storm  the citadel? Consider it stormed, sweetheart.” He rolled them, then eased Mycroft up the mattress. He moved his lover’s hand up to the wood bars of the headboard, and wrapped his fingers around them. “Imagine you’re chained, love. Can you do that? You can’t let go, all right? You’re here, you’re helpless.”

“Mmmmm.” In the dim night, Mycroft’s eyes looked dark, with only the bright sheen of reflected light off the lens to flash and shine. His fingers gripped tight. “Yours.”

“Yeah. That’s right. You’re mine.” Lestrade found pillows, used them to raise Mycroft’s head and shoulders to a comfortable height. He set a spare pillow aside for later, then straddled Mycroft’s hips. “All of you—you’re all mine,” he said, and proceeded to prove it, kissing, suckling, teasing, tracing each line and contour. He paused at Mycroft’s eyes, lips pressing tenderly to eyelids, tongue finding tears and lapping them delicately away. “So beautiful, your eyes.”

Cheekbones. Nose-tip. Lips…

“I could kiss you forever.”

“Do and you’re going to have to wait for my recovery period,” Mycroft murmured, laughing against Greg’s mouth. “I can’t take a lot more of this.”

“There’s cures for that,” Lestrade said, amused.

“Yes, I know,” Mycroft said, prim and precise. “I did my homework. I doubt there’s anything about the options that can be learned through objective study that I’ve missed. If you want, I did buy toys.”

Lestrade gave a sudden, surprised shout of laughter. “Damn. My knowing virgin. ‘Course you bought toys.”

“’Course I did.”

He could hear Mycroft’s smile—feel it in his belly. He smiled back. “And what toys intrigued you, love?”

“I’m a virgin. How would I know?” Mycroft asked, disingenuous and laughing.

“Virgin, maybe. Stupid and incurious? Never. What did you like, when you were testing the merchandise, sweetheart?”

“A bit of this, a bit of that. I’ll tell you more next time,” Mycroft said, with mild grumpiness. “This time all I want is you. And maybe the cinnamon lube. I did rather like the cinnamon lube.”

Lestrade chuckled. “Ok. Cinnamon lube it is. Drawer on the left side of the bed, or the right?”

“On your right.”

“Shows forethought and planning.”

“And? Your point? I _am_ the British Government, after all.”

Lestrade laughed. “That you are.” He nuzzled down Mycroft’s chest, fishing to the side. One tube, two tubes, what appeared to be a selection of anal plugs and dildos, packets of condoms…

“Do you need me to cover up? I’m clean, but…”

Mycroft sniffed. “I’m _the British Government._ If you weren’t clean, I’d know by now.”

“No such thing as privacy, then?”

“Not really, no.”

“Lucky I don’t mind.”

“So I am.” Mycroft sounded like he felt lucky, too. “In any case, no. The condoms are for tidiness, if you care. Or if I do. That’s all.”

Lestrade didn’t answer, instead sliding down until he lay between Mycroft’s thighs. He fished a tube from the drawer, opened it, sniffed, sealed it again. On the third try he had the cinnamon. He squeezed it out, and soothed it over Mycroft’s cock, smelling the blend of hot-sweet spice, and musky, sweet, and equally hot man.

“Oh, God, fuck,” Mycroft gasped as the gel gripped him with a cross-wired blend of hot and cold, pleasure and pain. “God…”

Lestrade hummed, rubbing it in. Then he leaned over and mouthed Mycroft’s cock.

The man was already beyond aroused. His uncut cock was full and firm, the foreskin already drawn back from the tender, delicate head. Lestrade sucked the head in, tracing it with the tip of his tongue. It was slick, tender, as smooth as a woman’s clitoris after years hidden safe in the tender cap of Mycroft’s foreskin. It was as sensitive as a clitoris, too—Mycroft moaned and squealed as Lestrade lipped and tickled and suckled, flicking against the thick, uncut frenulum that corded down from the head to the folds of skin below. He traced the delicate slit, explored the folds of the foreskin, then sucked in all he could, thinking that he’d finally reached the day when it would be worth his while to start learning to deep throat. For today, though, he was fairly sure what he was already capable of would be enough. Perhaps even more than enough—he could feel the quiver of impending orgasm as Mycroft gripped his shoudlers between long, strong thighs.

“Slow down, love,” Lestrade said. “Slow down.” He reached up and stroked Mycroft’s belly—soft, and temder, not fat but not hard or toned, either. A nice stomach—a middle-aged man’s stomach, with signs of a life-long struggle with weight: a war not lost, but not entirely won, either.

He could feel Mycroft tense, and noted the likelihood that he’d have to spend some time on reassurance. Tonight wasn’t the night for therapy, though, beyond the therapy that would come from successful coupling.

“How do you want me to do this, oh surrendered one? Just how taken do you want to be?”

Mycroft shivered. “ _Taken_.” His voice left very little doubt. “Done. Never have to ask myself what it would be like again. Do it.”

Lestrade hummed agreement, and oozed out more gel. He stroked a circle around Mycroft’s anus, and smiled to himself as that tight little opening clenched and twitched at the touch and at the chill-and-burn of the lubricant.

“You read about how to deal with being entered?”

“Push out, softly, don’t crimp as though holding anything in.”

“Give the man an A. Ok. Ready…set…go.”

He slipped a fingertip in. Mycroft, he thought, was not unexpectedly immaculate—clean, scrubbed, flawlessly pristine. There was nothing to repel anyone—just tender, soft skin, tawny brown and blush pink. He stroked in and out, feeling Mycroft relax into the motion and the intrusion. His lover groaned softly.

“Feel good?”

“God, yes.”

“More?”

“Mmmmm.”

Each added bit of depth, each new finger, pushed Mycroft further. He sighed with the pleasure, letting his legs fall further and further open, as though that alone might deepen the penetration. When Lestrade reached his prostate he crooned with it, pressing into the inner stroke and pulsing tight. His erection bobbed, hard and high and free. The tip was flushed deep fuchsia, and glistened in the bands of streetlight from the window beyond.

“Soon,” Mycroft whimpered. “Can’t hang on a lot longer. Please….”

“Yeah.” Lestrade crept up and lay over his lover, wrapping him tightly in his arms and kissing him once, before reaching down and settling himself against Mycroft’s twitching star. “Ok. Nice and easy.” He pushed, slowly, the head of his penis popping through easily, before Mycroft tightened and gasped.

“Wait…”

“Waiting. Let me know what you need, love.”

“Mmmm.” It took a moment, but Mycroft relaxed and the grip on Lestrade’s cock softened. He continued his slow thrust in, until he was seated deeply, then drew out again, until only the head remained.

“Good?”

“Yes. Greg—I can’t hold on long. I’m too close.”

“Ok. Look, here—do this.” He guided his lover’s hands to Mycroft’s own cock; helped him find the band he could clamp down tight. “It won’t stop things entirely, but it will slow you down while I catch up. Is that good, love?”

“I can do that. Let me know when you’re there.”

“Will do.” He bent his back to his work, then. In, out. Mycroft arched his head up and pressed soft kisses to Lestrade’s sweating face, kissing his forehead, his cheeks, along his jawline. The desire uncoiled, moved through him like a hunting serpent, spread itself out and flowed.

“How are you?”

“Barely hanging on.”

“Good. When I say ‘now,’ you can quit working at it and just let go.”

Just knowing kicked them both closer. He drove in, drove in again, and one more time—and the word began to dissolve.

“Now…”

Mycroft came undone beneath him, howling with it. As the hot load hit Lestrade’s stomach he crested, too, shouting hoarsely, ramming his hips against bum and pelvic bones, balls slapping round arse, semen adding a hot slick of extra lubrication as he pumped out the last strokes and fell spent over his lover’s body.

“Hell. Bloody hell. That was…bloody hell.” He panted out his awe. “That was great.”

“Uh…” Mycroft’s voice was high and stunned and content…and he was clearly beyond words.

It was fully half an hour before they could stir themselves to shower. An hour before Mycroft brewed them tea, then rejoined Lestrade in bed, saying, “Thank you. Never was a fortress so brilliantly breached.”

“Hail, the conquering hero comes,” Lestrade drawled, grinning. “Wouldn’t mind reenacting that particular battle with you again, sometime.”

“Likewise—along with others of that particular campaign.” Mycroft dimpled. “If you’re interested, that is?”

“Always.” Lestrade twisted and nudged, until he half-lay in the curve of Mycroft’s arm, head on his shoulder as they sat against the headboard.

“You mean that?” Mycroft sounded small and worried. “You’re not just saying it because I was…well. Inexperienced? You don’t think you’re obliged to stay, or at least to pretend you will?”

Lestrade thought about it, and said, drowsily. “Nah. If I wasn’t going to stay I wouldn’t ha’ come in the first place.” Then, hearing the pun, he chuckled with Mycroft. “You know what I mean. Bad enough playing that game on a kid. Not something I’d do to someone who waited as long as you did. I’m yours, if you’ll have me.”

Mycroft nodded, and gripped his shoulders tight, his arm a band of unwavering strength. “Forever,” he said. “Or as long as we both shall live.”

And while they married officially, years later, when the British Government retired and was no longer a live target, they always swore that was the night they took their true last vow.


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft insisted on having the last sensual, sentimental word....

Mycroft woke naked in his bed at the Diogenes, warm under the duvet, with Lestrade breathing heavily beside him. He watched the man in the fading darkness of early dawn.

He lay in elegant collapse, as supple as a cat sprawled on a sofa-back or the top of a refrigerator—one arm raised and folded, pillowing his own head, the other around Mycroft’s waist, hidden under the duvet. He was deeply asleep. Mycroft stretched out his hand and delicately traced the bow of his lover’s upper lip, smiling when the man murmured and pulled away from the tickling touch.

The feelings threatened to tear Mycroft apart. They promised to make him whole again. Mainly they swelled, more intense and unsettling than he could have believed, even after the past months of slowly building involvement with his friend and colleague.

He had always dreaded sentiment. He’d known himself to be too vulnerable, and too powerfully commanded by his own capacity for caring. His love for his frustrating, maddening family already near-crippled him. Mummy and Father, who he loved—and who hurt him so casually with their distaste for his orientation. And Mummy’s inability to ever quite be rational about her youngest: Sherlock, the baby, so like her and so hungry for her preference. And Sherlock himself: devil, darling, lunatic, competitor, enemy, beloved child.

They broke his heart. They left him helpless. He could no more cut them off than he could cut off his own head and survive the process. And, yet, they were nothing to what this entire falling-in-love had turned out to be.

Lestrade undid him. Lestrade offered him a million things he had not known he wanted, that vaguely embarrassed him and yet thrilled him.

He had never been “protected” in the usual sense. Oh, he’d lived in Mummy and Father’s carefully devised hot house, sheltered from the world until even they had realized their sons were lacking in social skills that would be desperately needed in their lives to come. But Mummy had wanted her boys—or at least Mycroft, her first—to be independent, resourceful, strong, capable…to need no shelter and to demand no comfort. Even if Mycroft had not been stoic and reserved by nature, Mummy’s hopes for her children’s self-sufficiency and pragmatic lack of sentiment would have encouraged such behaviors.

So why did he remember Lestrade putting himself between Mycroft and danger, and burn and hunger for that kind of protective generosity? Why did a man who’d always defended himself find the gift of protection to pierce his heart like a dagger—a dagger that then dissolved, leaving him gasping?

Lestrade sighed, twisted, and drew closer to Mycroft, his arm holding Mycroft close, his shoulder arching over. Mycroft rolled closer, and closed his eyes, drawing in the scent of them together. The warm air between them smelled of soap from the shower, shampoo, deodorant, shaving soap… It smelled of faint, lingering traces of sex: sweat and musk and semen. It smelled the lavender ironing water on the custom linen sheets. All the smells mingled, warmed, perfumed the bed…

He had attended formal high-church Catholic and Eastern Orthodox weddings in his diplomatic functions: the kind of weddings that included swung-censers drifting scented smoke over the couple. He knew that for him these mixed smells, human and clean, would be the incense that blessed his coupling with Lestrade.

He had not known he wanted to lie beneath another person—to allow his body to be played by practiced hands that stole his control from him a caress at a time. He had not known he wanted to be swept away, carried on a passion that removed will and identity, leaving only some shining awareness moaning and unashamed. He had not known he needed to be vulnerable. He had not know he needed to be afraid…yet trusting. He had not known that, naked and shy, he could give himself away, only to be handed back to himself a thousand-fold—and given Lestrade as well.

The feelings still tickled and prickled and awed and amazed. His heart drummed out a hungry beat and he shook with it. It was still embarrassing. It was still terrifying. It had broken down his reserve and forced him to accept things he often found distasteful: touch, intimacy, submission, lack of any shield or defense. He had not hated those things any less in Lestrade’s arms, but had loved what giving them up gained him even more.

He would always be a shy, reserved man, private in his comings and goings, unhappy with most human touch, uninterested in most forms of social or physical intimacy. But with this man, in their shared bed, he knew now that he could be wanton, willing, wild. That he could crave the very kind of touch he usually fled from—the kind of creeping touch Magnussen had inflicted on people as a violation was no violation at all shared with Lestrade. Instead it was a revelation and a benediction.

He shifted and twisted, holding Lestrade in his arms, bringing himself more and more completely into the sheltering curl of Lestrade’s arm. It felt safe and wonderful.

Lestrade mumbled, half-waking at Mycroft’s quiet invasion.

“Wha’ ‘sup?”

“Nothing,” Mycroft answered, smiling. “Just happy.”

Lestrade murmured again, low, and nuzzled Mycroft’s hair, before tumbling back into sleep. Soon Mycroft followed him. His last thought before dreams took him was, “Happy…,” as though it were a miracle and wonder.

But, then, for him, it was.


End file.
